Dogs' Eavesdropping from People's Reactions in Third Party Interactions

FREIDIN, E.; PUTRINO, N.; D´ORAZIO, M.; BENTOSELA, M.

PLOS ONE

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Lugar: San Francisco; Año: 2013 vol. 8 p. 1 - 8

1932-6203

Eavesdropping involves the acquisition of information from third-party interactions, andcan serve to indirectly attribute reputation to individuals. There is evidence oneavesdropping in dogs, indicating that they can develop a preference for people basedon their cooperativeness towards others. In this study, we tested dogs´ eavesdroppingabilities one step further. In a first experiment, dogs could choose between cooperativedemonstrators (the donors) who always gave food to an approaching third person (thebeggar); here, the only difference between donors was whether they received positiveor negative reactions from the beggar (through verbal and gestural means). Resultsshowed that dogs preferentially approached the donor who had received positivereactions from the beggar. By contrast, two different conditions showed that neither thebeggar´s body gestures nor the verbal component of the interaction on their own weresufficient to affect the dogs´ preferences. We also ran two further experiments to testfor the possibility of dogs´ choices being driven by local enhancement. When thedonors switched places before the choice, dogs chose at random. Similarly, in anonsocial condition in which donors were replaced by platforms, subjects chose atchance levels. We conclude that dogs´ nonrandom choices in the present protocolrelied on the simultaneous presence of multiple cues, such as the place where donorsstood and several features of the beggar´s behavior (gestural and verbal reactions, andeating behavior). Nonetheless, we did not find conclusive evidence that dogsdiscriminated the donors by their physical features, which is a prerequisite for theattribution of reputation.