Following human pointing: Where do dogs (Canis familiaris) look at to find food?

CARBALLO, FABRICIO; BENTOSELA, M.; CASSANAVE, E.; FREIDIN, E.; CARBALLO, FABRICIO; BENTOSELA, M.; CASSANAVE, E.; FREIDIN, E.

BEHAVIOURAL PROCESSES

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016 vol. 128 p. 37 - 40

0376-6357

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are notably skillful in following cues from people(e.g., pointing gestures). However, not much is known about the processing of informationavailable during such tasks. We here focus on one of the earliest of such processes, namelyattention. The goal of the present work was to describe variations in dogs? attention towardsdiverse targets while they solve an object choice task with human pointing. The direction ofsubjects? gaze was measured in the period comprising one second before and two secondsafter the experimenter called the dog and simultaneously performed a static distal pointinggesture towards the correct bowl. We did two consecutive training phases: acquisition andextinction. Dogs spent more time watching the pointer than the pointing gesture itself andthe correct than the incorrect bowl. Indeed, the time spent watching the correct bowl wasthe best predictor of correct choices across phases. We discuss the relevance of thesefindings for the process of local enhancement.