Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human
Summary: Although dogs exhibit remarkable capabilities for interacting with humans, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. Here, we investigated canine perspective taking by challenging dogs to decide whether and where to steal food in the absence of a human who had pr...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-02-01
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| Series: | iScience |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225000719 |
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| author | Ludwig Huber Pauline van der Wolf Machteld Menkveld Stefanie Riemer Christoph J. Völter |
| author_facet | Ludwig Huber Pauline van der Wolf Machteld Menkveld Stefanie Riemer Christoph J. Völter |
| author_sort | Ludwig Huber |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Summary: Although dogs exhibit remarkable capabilities for interacting with humans, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. Here, we investigated canine perspective taking by challenging dogs to decide whether and where to steal food in the absence of a human who had prohibited them from doing so. The dogs could only infer the experimenter’s presence through a sound (carrot chopping) they had perceived during a prior exploration phase, in which they also had the opportunity to observe from which locations in the room the human was visible. In the test, the majority of dogs preferred to steal from a plate that was not visible from the location where the human had chopped carrots before when they heard a playback of the chopping sound but not when they heard a control sound (street noise). These findings provide evidence that dogs anticipate the behavior of humans without relying on observable visual cues. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f92d998848d1498186616a8be836b9a9 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2589-0042 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | iScience |
| spelling | doaj-art-f92d998848d1498186616a8be836b9a92025-01-31T05:12:12ZengElsevieriScience2589-00422025-02-01282111811Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen humanLudwig Huber0Pauline van der Wolf1Machteld Menkveld2Stefanie Riemer3Christoph J. Völter4Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria; Corresponding authorComparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, AustriaComparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, AustriaComparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, AustriaComparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria; Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, GermanySummary: Although dogs exhibit remarkable capabilities for interacting with humans, the underlying cognitive mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. Here, we investigated canine perspective taking by challenging dogs to decide whether and where to steal food in the absence of a human who had prohibited them from doing so. The dogs could only infer the experimenter’s presence through a sound (carrot chopping) they had perceived during a prior exploration phase, in which they also had the opportunity to observe from which locations in the room the human was visible. In the test, the majority of dogs preferred to steal from a plate that was not visible from the location where the human had chopped carrots before when they heard a playback of the chopping sound but not when they heard a control sound (street noise). These findings provide evidence that dogs anticipate the behavior of humans without relying on observable visual cues.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225000719Canine behaviorBiological sciencesBehavioral neuroscience |
| spellingShingle | Ludwig Huber Pauline van der Wolf Machteld Menkveld Stefanie Riemer Christoph J. Völter Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human iScience Canine behavior Biological sciences Behavioral neuroscience |
| title | Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| title_full | Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| title_fullStr | Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| title_full_unstemmed | Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| title_short | Canine perspective taking: Anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| title_sort | canine perspective taking anticipating the behavior of an unseen human |
| topic | Canine behavior Biological sciences Behavioral neuroscience |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004225000719 |
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