Virányi, Z., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., & Csányi, V. (2004). Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans' attentional focus. Behav. Process., 66(2), 161–172.
Abstract: Dogs' ability to recognise cues of human visual attention was studied in different experiments. Study 1 was designed to test the dogs' responsiveness to their owner's tape-recorded verbal commands (Down!) while the Instructor (who was the owner of the dog) was facing either the dog or a human partner or none of them, or was visually separated from the dog. Results show that dogs were more ready to follow the command if the Instructor attended them during instruction compared to situations when the Instructor faced the human partner or was out of sight of the dog. Importantly, however, dogs showed intermediate performance when the Instructor was orienting into 'empty space' during the re-played verbal commands. This suggests that dogs are able to differentiate the focus of human attention. In Study 2 the same dogs were offered the possibility to beg for food from two unfamiliar humans whose visual attention (i.e. facing the dog or turning away) was systematically varied. The dogs' preference for choosing the attentive person shows that dogs are capable of using visual cues of attention to evaluate the human actors' responsiveness to solicit food-sharing. The dogs' ability to understand the communicatory nature of the situations is discussed in terms of their social cognitive skills and unique evolutionary history.
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Schwab, C., & Huber, L. (2006). Obey or not obey? Dogs (Canis familiaris) behave differently in response to attentional states of their owners. J Comp Psychol, 120(3), 169–175.
Abstract: Sixteen domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) were tested in a familiar context in a series of 1-min trials on how well they obeyed after being told by their owner to lie down. Food was used in 1/3 of all trials, and during the trial the owner engaged in 1 of 5 activities. The dogs behaved differently depending on the owner's attention to them. When being watched by the owner, the dogs stayed lying down most often and/or for the longest time compared with when the owner read a book, watched TV, turned his or her back on them, or left the room. These results indicate that the dogs sensed the attentional state of their owners by judging observable behavioral cues such as eye contact and eye, head, and body orientation.
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Gazit, I., Goldblatt, A., & Terkel, J. (2005). The role of context specificity in learning: the effects of training context on explosives detection in dogs. Anim. Cogn., 8(3), 143–150.
Abstract: Various experiments revealed that if an animal learns a stimulus-response-reinforcer relationship in one context and is then tested in another context there is usually a lessening of stimulus control, and the same discriminative stimuli that reliably controlled the behavior in the first context will have less effect in the new context. This reduction in performance is known as the “context shift effect.” The effect of changing context on the probability of detecting explosives was investigated in seven highly trained explosives detection dogs (EDDs). In experiment 1 the dogs were trained alternately on path A, which always had five hidden explosives, and on a very similar path B, which never had any explosives. Within a few sessions the dogs showed a significant decrease in search behavior on path B, but not on path A. In experiment 2 the same dogs were trained only on path B with a target density of one explosive hidden every 4th day. The probability of the dogs now detecting the explosive was found to be significantly lower than in experiment 1. In experiment 3 the effect of the low target density as used in experiment 2 was investigated on a new but very similar path C. Both the detection probability for the one explosive every 4th day on the new path and the motivation to search were significantly higher than found in experiment 2. Finally, in experiment 4, an attempt was made to recondition the dogs to search on path B. Although trained for 12 daily sessions with one explosive hidden every session, the dogs failed to regain the normal levels of motivation they had shown on both new paths and on the paths that they knew usually contained explosives. The findings reveal that even a very intensively trained EDD will rapidly learn that a specific stretch of path does not contain explosives. The dog will then be less motivated to search and will miss newly placed targets. This learning is specific to the formerly always-clean path and is to some extent irreversible. However, the dog will search and detect normally on new paths even if they are very similar to the always-clean path. The data are discussed in terms of variables affecting renewal. The results suggest that following training designed to make a behavior “context independent,” any extinction training will not generalize beyond that specific context used during the extinction training. In addition, if the behavior is extinguished in a specific context, it will be very difficult to restore that behavior in that context. These conclusions should be considered by anyone attempting to extinguish well-established trans-context behaviors.
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Osthaus, B., Lea, S. E. G., & Slater, A. M. (2005). Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) fail to show understanding of means-end connections in a string-pulling task. Anim. Cogn., 8(1), 37–47.
Abstract: Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were tested in four experiments for their understanding of means-end connections. In each of the experiments, the dogs attempted to retrieve a food treat that could be seen behind a barrier and which was connected, via string, to a within-reach wooden block. In the experiments, either one or two strings were present, but the treat was attached only to one string. Successful retrieval of the treat required the animals to pull the appropriate string (either by pawing or by grasping the wooden block in their jaws) until the treat emerged from under the barrier. The results showed that the dogs were successful if the treat was in a perpendicular line to the barrier, i.e. straight ahead, but not when the string was at an angle: in the latter condition, the typical response was a proximity error in that the dogs pawed or mouthed at a location closest in line to the treat. When two strings that crossed were present, the dogs tended to pull on the wrong string. The combined results from the experiments show that, although dogs can learn to pull on a string to obtain food, they do not spontaneously understand means-end connections involving strings.
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Call, J., Brauer, J., Kaminski, J., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are sensitive to the attentional state of humans. J Comp Psychol, 117(3), 257–263.
Abstract: Twelve domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) were given a series of trials in which they were forbidden to take a piece of visible food. In some trials, the human continued to look at the dog throughout the trial (control condition), whereas in others, the human (a) left the room, (b) turned her back, (c) engaged in a distracting activity, or (d) closed her eyes. Dogs behaved in clearly different ways in most of the conditions in which the human did not watch them compared with the control condition, in which she did. In particular, when the human looked at them, dogs retrieved less food, approached it in a more indirect way, and sat (as opposed to laid down) more often than in the other conditions. Results are discussed in terms of domestic dogs' social-cognitive skills and their unique evolutionary and ontogenetic histories.
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Shalaby, A. M. (1969). Host-preference observations on Anopheles culicifacies (Diptera: Culicidae) in Gujarat State, India. Ann Entomol Soc Am, 62(6), 1270–1273.
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Beaver, B. V. (1981). Problems & values associated with dominance. Vet Med Small Anim Clin, 76(8), 1129–1131.
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Hare, B., Brown, M., Williamson, C., & Tomasello, M. (2002). The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science, 298(5598), 1634–1636.
Abstract: Dogs are more skillful than great apes at a number of tasks in which they must read human communicative signals indicating the location of hidden food. In this study, we found that wolves who were raised by humans do not show these same skills, whereas domestic dog puppies only a few weeks old, even those that have had little human contact, do show these skills. These findings suggest that during the process of domestication, dogs have been selected for a set of social-cognitive abilities that enable them to communicate with humans in unique ways.
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Siniscalchi, M., Sasso, R., Pepe, A. M., Dimatteo, S., Vallortigara, G., & Quaranta, A. (). Sniffing with the right nostril: lateralization of response to odour stimuli by dogs. Anim. Behav., In Press, Corrected Proof.
Abstract: Lateralization in dogs, Canis familiaris, has been reported for paw usage and response to visual and acoustic stimuli. Surprisingly, however, no investigation of possible lateralization for the most relevant sensory domain of dogs, namely olfaction, has been carried out. Here we investigated left and right nostril use in dogs freely sniffing different emotive stimuli in unrestrained conditions. When sniffing novel nonaversive stimuli (food, lemon, vaginal secretion and cotton swab odours), dogs showed initial preferential use of the right nostril and then a shift towards use of the left nostril with repeated stimulus presentation. When sniffing arousal stimuli such as adrenaline and veterinary sweat odorants, dogs showed a consistent right nostril bias all over the series of stimulus presentations. Results suggest initial involvement of the right hemisphere in processing of novel stimuli followed by the left hemisphere taking charge of control of routine behaviour. Sustained right nostril response to arousal stimuli appears to be consistent with the idea that the sympathetic hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is mainly under the control of the right hemisphere. The implications of these findings for animal welfare are discussed.
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Skandakumar, S., Stodulski, G., & Hau, J. (1995). Salivary IgA: a Possible Stress Marker In Dogs. In Animal Welfare (Vol. 4, pp. 339–350).
Abstract: Stress in humans has been reported to be associated with a decrease in the salivary immunoglobulin A (s-IgA) levels enabling the possible use of s-IgA to assess stress. Prolonged stress, if reliably assessed in a non-invasive manner, may be used to assess animal welfare. This study analysed groups of dogs undergoing physical and temperamental training and s-IgA levels were measured by rocket immunoelectrophoresis in prospective samples. Behavioural assessment was carried out and cortisol levels in saliva were measured by ELISA. A significant negative correlation (P < 0.007) between the logarithmic cortisol concentrations and s-IgA levels in saliva was recorded. The behavioural assessment of the dogs agreed well with the biochemical markers. It is concluded that IgA levels in saliva may be a useful marker of dog well-being and that stress results in decreased s-IgA levels.
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