New dog, old tricks? Stray dogs can understand human cues

Summary: Stray, untrained dogs respond to gestures given by humans. The findings suggest that dog/human understanding may transcend learning.

Source: Frontiers

If you have a dog, hopefully you’re lucky enough to know that they are highly attuned to their owners and can readily understand a wide range of commands and gestures. But are these abilities innate or are they exclusively learned through training?

To find out, a new study in Frontiers in Psychology investigated whether untrained stray dogs could understand human pointing gestures.

The study revealed that about 80% of participating dogs successfully followed pointing gestures to a specific location despite having never received prior training. The results suggest that dogs can understand complex gestures by simply watching humans and this could have implications in reducing conflict between stray dogs and humans.

Dogs were domesticated 10,000-15,000 years ago, likely making them the oldest domesticated animals on the planet. Humans then bred dogs with the most desirable and useful traits so that they could function as companions and workers, leading to domesticated dogs that are highly receptive to human commands and gestures.

However, it was not clear whether dogs understand us through training alone, or whether this was innate. Can dogs interpret a signal, such as a gesture, without specific training, or even without having met the signaling person previously? One way to find out is to see whether untrained, stray dogs can interpret and react to human gestures.

Stray dogs are a common feature in cities around the world and particularly in many developing countries. While they may observe and occasionally interact with people, such dogs have never been trained, and are behaviorally “wild”. Conflicts between stray dogs and humans are a problem and understanding how humans shape stray dog behavior may help alleviate this.

To investigate, Dr. Anindita Bhadra of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India, and colleagues studied stray dogs across several Indian cities. The researchers approached solitary stray dogs and placed two covered bowls on the ground near them. A researcher then pointed to one of the two bowls, either momentarily or repeatedly, and recorded whether the dog approached the indicated bowl. They also recorded the perceived emotional state of the dogs during the experiment.

Approximately half of the dogs did not approach either bowl. However, the researchers noticed that these dogs were anxious and may have had bad experiences with humans before. The dogs who approached the bowls were noted as friendlier and less anxious, and approximately 80% correctly followed the pointing signals to one of the bowls, regardless of whether the pointing was momentary or repeated. This suggests that the dogs could indeed decipher complex gestures.

This shows a stray dog
The results suggest that dogs may have an innate ability to understand certain human gestures which transcends training. Image is in the public domain.

“We thought it was quite amazing that the dogs could follow a gesture as abstract as momentary pointing,” explained Bhadra. “This means that they closely observe the human, whom they are meeting for the first time, and they use their understanding of humans to make a decision. This shows their intelligence and adaptability.”

The results suggest that dogs may have an innate ability to understand certain human gestures which transcends training. However, it should be noted that the shyer, more anxious animals tended not to participate, so future studies are needed to determine more precisely how an individual dog’s personality affects their ability to understand human cues.

Overall, dogs may be more perceptive than we realize. “We need to understand that dogs are intelligent animals that can co-exist with us,” said Bhadra “They are quite capable of understanding our body language and we need to give them their space. A little empathy and respect for another species can reduce a lot of conflict.”

About this neuroscience research article

Source:
Frontiers
Media Contacts:
Michael Becker – Frontiers
Image Source:
The image is in the public domain.

Original Research: Open access
“Free-Ranging Dogs Are Capable of Utilizing Complex Human Pointing Cues”. Anindita Bhadra et al.
Frontiers in Psychology doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02818.

Abstract

Free-Ranging Dogs Are Capable of Utilizing Complex Human Pointing Cues

Dogs are one of the most common species to be found as pets and have been subjects of human curiosity, leading to extensive research on their socialization with humans. One of the dominant themes in dog cognition pertains to their capacity for understanding and responding to human referential gestures. The remarkable sociocognitive skills of pet dogs, while interacting with humans, is quite well established. However, studies regarding the free-ranging subpopulations are greatly lacking. The interactions of these dogs with humans are quite complex and multidimensional. For the first time, we tested 160 adult free-ranging dogs to understand their ability to follow relatively complex human referential gestures using dynamic and momentary distal pointing cues. We found that these dogs are capable of following distal pointing cues from humans to locate hidden food rewards. However, approximately half of the population tested showed a lack of tendency to participate even after successful familiarization with the experimental setup. A closer inspection revealed that anxious behavioral states of the individuals were responsible for such an outcome. Finally, we compared the results using data from an earlier study with dynamic proximal cues. We found that free-ranging dogs follow distal cues more accurately compared to proximal cue. We assume that life experiences with humans probably shape personalities of free-ranging dogs, which in turn influence their responsiveness to human communicative gestures.

Feel free to share this Animal Psychology News.
Join our Newsletter
I agree to have my personal information transferred to AWeber for Neuroscience Newsletter ( more information )
Sign up to receive our recent neuroscience headlines and summaries sent to your email once a day, totally free.
We hate spam and only use your email to contact you about newsletters. You can cancel your subscription any time.