Eye Tracking in Dogs: Achievements and Challenges.

Area of Science:

• Comparative cognition
• Animal behavior
• Psychophysics

Background:

• Eye tracking, a tool from human psychophysics, is increasingly used to study dogs (Canis familiaris).
• Previous research has explored canine perception of various human-related cues and physical processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review achievements in canine perception and cognition using eye tracking.
• To discuss challenges in applying eye-tracking technology to dogs.
• To propose future research avenues in dog eye-tracking.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing eye-tracking studies involving dogs.
• Analysis of challenges such as stimulus validity, training, sample size, calibration, and artificial settings.
• Identification of potential solutions and new methodologies.

Main Results:

• Dogs demonstrate perception of human faces, hands, gaze, emotions, and communicative signals.
• Canine perception extends to goal-directed movements, social interactions, and animations depicting physical processes.
• Challenges include picture-object equivalence, extensive training, small sample sizes, calibration difficulties, and artificial environments.

Conclusions:

• Eye tracking offers valuable insights into canine cognition but faces methodological hurdles.
• Improvements in stimulus design and data collection are needed.
• Future research should incorporate dynamic stimuli, pupillometry, and combined methods for advanced understanding.