Sex, skull length, breed, and age predict how dogs look at faces of humans and conspecifics

Abstract

The gaze of other dogs and humans is informative for dogs, but it has not been explored which factors predict face-directed attention. We used image presentations of unfamiliar human and dog heads, facing the observer (portrait) or facing away (profile), and measured looking time responses. We expected dog portraits to be aversive, human portraits to attract interest, and tested dogs of different sex, skull length and breed function, which in previous work had predicted human-directed attention. Dog portraits attracted longer looking times than human profiles. Mesocephalic dogs looked at portraits longer than at profiles, independent of the species in the image. Overall, brachycephalic dogs and dogs of unspecified breed function (such as mixed breeds) displayed the longest looking times. Among the latter, females observed the images for longer than males, which is in line with human findings on sex differences in processing faces. In a subsequent experiment, we tested whether dog portraits functioned as threatening stimuli. We hypothesized that dogs will avoid food rewards or approach them more slowly in the presence of a dog portrait, but found no effect of image type. In general, older dogs took longer to approach food placed in front of the images and mesocephalic dogs were faster than dogs of other skull length types. The results suggest that short-headed dogs are more attentive to faces, while sex and breed function predict looking times through complex interactions.

Who turns to the human? Companion pigs’ and dogs’ behaviour in the unsolvable task paradigm

“…Another potential reason for species differences in human-oriented behaviours in the unsolvable phase may be that pigs' laterally positioned eyes, wider viewing angle (Zonderland et al 2008) and less flexible neck (Sack 1982) make them anatomically less predisposed to orient towards a human and to perform orientation alternations, and they Supplementary Tables S3-S10) also need to do it less than dogs for a comparable visual input. In support, short-headed dogs (with less lateral eyes) were found to gaze more at humans than long-headed dogs (Bognár et al 2018). However, both wolves (with similar anatomy) and cats (with a flexible neck Graf et al 1995;Zhang et al 2014) were shown to perform less human-oriented behaviours in a problem-solving context than dogs (Brubaker et al 2017;Miklósi et al 2005).…”

Come for the looks, stay for the personality? A mixed methods investigation of reacquisition and owner recommendation of Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs

“…Labrador Retriever) and doliocephalic breeds (with a relatively long skull e.g. Greyhound) [ 41 ]. Rather than preference being purely based on their paedomorphic (baby-like) appearance, this may support the suggestion that the popularity of these breeds is also because humans might have preferred animals that looked at them for longer durations because this enhanced the effectiveness of communicative interaction [ 42 ].…”

Digital Endocasting in Comparative Canine Brain Morphology

“…where the skull width was measured between the widest point of the zygomatic arches and the skull length was measured between the prosthion and inion. Skulls having SI < 51 were classified as dolicocephalic, 51 ≤ SI < 59 were mesocephalic, and 59 ≤ SI considered to be brachycephalic types ( 41 ).…”