NDLI: Dogs (Canis familiaris) adjust their social behaviour to the differential role of inanimate interactive agents

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Petró, Eszter Abdai, Judit Gergely, Anna Topál, József Miklósi, Ádám
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	Dogs are able to flexibly adjust their social behaviour to situation-specific characteristics of their human partner’s behaviour in problem situations. However, dogs do not necessarily detect the specific role played by the human in a particular situation: they may form expectations about their partners’ behaviour based on previous experiences with them. Utilising inanimate objects (UMO—unidentified moving object) as interacting agents offers new possibilities for investigating social behaviour, because in this way we can remove or control the influence of previous experience with the partner. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether dogs are able to recognise the different roles of two UMOs and are able to adjust their communicative behaviour towards them. In the learning phase of the experiment, dogs were presented with a two-way food-retrieval problem in which two UMOs, which differed in their physical appearance and abilities, helped the dog obtain a piece of food in their own particular manner. After a short experience with both UMOs, dogs in the test phase faced one of the problems in the presence of both inanimate agents. Overall, dogs displayed similar levels of gazing behaviour towards the UMOs, but in the first test they looked, approached and touched the relevant partner first. This rapid adjustment of social behaviour towards UMOs suggests that dogs may generalise their experiences with humans to unfamiliar agents and are able to select the appropriate partner when facing a problem situation.
Starting Page	367
Ending Page	374
Page Count	8
File Format	PDF
ISSN	14359448
Journal	Animal Cognition
Volume Number	19
Issue Number	2
e-ISSN	14359456
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2015-11-18
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Subject Keyword	Dog Problem solving Social interaction Inanimate agent Behavioral Sciences Zoology Psychology Research
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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