Use of experimenter-given cues in dogs

Area of Science:

• Animal behavior
• Ethology
• Interspecies communication

Background:

• The "Clever Hans effect" highlights how animals can use human cues.
• Rhesus monkeys can learn pointing cues but not gaze direction, while chimpanzees use gaze direction.
• Dogs are thought to be sensitive to human gestures, but this has not been rigorously tested.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if dogs (Canis familiaris) can use human gestures as cues.
• To determine the range of gestures dogs can interpret.
• To assess if dogs can generalize these cues between different people.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted to test dogs' responses to human gestures.
• Gestures included pointing, bowing, nodding, head-turning, and glancing.
• Baseline trials controlled for olfactory cues, and generalization across familiar individuals was tested.

Main Results:

• Dogs successfully used pointing, bowing, nodding, head-turning, and glancing gestures to locate hidden food.
• Dogs demonstrated the ability to generalize these gestures between their owner and an experimenter.
• Limited performance variability suggested prior experience with some cues.

Conclusions:

• Dogs possess a significant ability to interpret human gestural communication.
• This capacity is better understood as interspecies communication rather than simple discrimination learning.
• The findings confirm dogs' sensitivity to human social cues.