The effect of ostensive cues on dogs’ performance in a manipulative social learning task

Range, Friederike; Heucke, Silke L.; Gruber, Christina; Konz, Astrid; Huber, Ludwig; Virányi, Zsófia

doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2009.05.012

Cited by 64 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…During domestication, dogs have become selected to maintain attention towards humans, which seems to be critical for dog-human communication and social learning [51]. Thus, it is possible that dogs are predisposed to respond more intensively, or only, to human social cues rather than conspecifics’ ones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy

2013

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In humans, the susceptibility to yawn contagion has been theoretically and empirically related to our capacity for empathy. Because of its relevance to evolutionary biology, this phenomenon has been the focus of recent investigations in non-human species. In line with the empathic hypothesis, contagious yawning has been shown to correlate with the level of social attachment in several primate species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have also shown the ability to yawn contagiously. To date, however, the social modulation of dog contagious yawning has received contradictory support and alternative explanations (i.e., yawn as a mild distress response) could explain positive evidence. The present study aims to replicate contagious yawning in dogs and to discriminate between the two possible mediating mechanisms (i.e., empathic vs. distress related response). Twenty-five dogs observed familiar (dog’s owner) and unfamiliar human models (experimenter) acting out a yawn or control mouth movements. Concurrent physiological measures (heart rate) were additionally monitored for twenty-one of the subjects. The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements. Furthermore, the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity. Moreover, subjects’ heart rate did not differ among conditions suggesting that the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events. Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy

2013

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“…It has been reported that highly trained dogs are more proficient in using http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2014.09.022 0376-6357/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. human cues than untrained dogs (McKinley and Sambrook, 2000;Range et al, 2009); however, Cunningham and Ramos (2013) obtained no evidence that intensive training improved performance on a cue-following task.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Some authors, however, have underlined the importance of the domestication process attributing the domestic dog's sensitivity to human social cues to an human-like social cognition selected during domestication, considering such dog abilities neither simply inherited from wolves nor the result of ontogeny (Hare and Tomasello, 2005;Hare et al, 2010Hare et al, , 2002. Within an approach to socio-cognitive skills in dogs, which demonstrate the importance of selection (natural and artificial) and individual ontogenetic experiences (Miklósi and Topál, 2013;Udell et al, 2010b), a number of studies have assessed the role of learning, living conditions and the quality of the dog-human relationship in shaping the behaviour of dogs in different contexts, such as problem-solving tasks (e.g., Barrera et al, 2011;Bentosela et al, 2009Bentosela et al, , 2008Cunningham and Ramos, 2013;Horn et al, 2013;Marshall-Pescini et al, 2009, 2008Passalacqua et al, 2013;Range et al, 2009;Topál et al, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gazing toward humans: A study on water rescue dogs using the impossible task paradigm

D’Aniello

Scandurra

Prato-Previde

et al. 2015

Behavioural Processes

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“…The extent to which a dog can concentrate selectively on specific aspects of the environment and to exclude others is of utmost importance for effective training, social learning, and communication; all of which rely crucially on a dogs’ ability to maintain attention toward humans (Lindsay, 2001; Range et al, 2009a). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifespan development of attentiveness in domestic dogs: drawing parallels with humans

et al. 2014

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Attention is pivotal to consciousness, perception, cognition, and working memory in all mammals, and therefore changes in attention over the lifespan are likely to influence development and aging of all of these functions. Due to their evolutionary and developmental history, the dog is being recognized as an important species for modeling human healthspan, aging and associated diseases. In this study, we investigated the normal lifespan development of attentiveness of pet dogs in naturalistic situations, and compared the resulting cross-sectional developmental trajectories with data from previous studies in humans. We tested a sample of 145 Border collies (6 months to 14 years) with humans and objects or food as attention attractors, in order to assess their attentional capture, sustained and selective attention, and sensorimotor abilities. Our results reveal differences in task relevance in sustained attentional performance when watching a human or a moving object, which may be explained by life-long learning processes involving such stimuli. During task switching we found that dogs’ selective attention and sensorimotor abilities showed differences between age groups, with performance peaking at middle age. Dogs’ sensorimotor abilities showed a quadratic distribution with age and were correlated with selective attention performance. Our results support the hypothesis that the development and senescence of sensorimotor and attentional control may be fundamentally interrelated. Additionally, attentional capture, sustained attention, and sensorimotor control developmental trajectories paralleled those found in humans. Given that the development of attention is similar across humans and dogs, we propose that the same regulatory mechanisms are likely to be present in both species. Finally, this cross-sectional study provides the first description of age group changes in attention over the lifespan of pet dogs.

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The effect of ostensive cues on dogs’ performance in a manipulative social learning task

Cited by 64 publications

References 29 publications

Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy

Familiarity Bias and Physiological Responses in Contagious Yawning by Dogs Support Link to Empathy

Gazing toward humans: A study on water rescue dogs using the impossible task paradigm

Lifespan development of attentiveness in domestic dogs: drawing parallels with humans

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