Effects of human social cues on choice tasks performed by dogs, wolves and half breeds

• Grant number: 13/00576-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: September 10, 2013
• End date: March 09, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Comparative Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Camila Domeniconi
• Grantee: Isabela Zaine
• Supervisor: Clive D. L. Wynne
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Florida, Gainesville (UF), United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 11/06288-0 - Sensitivity to human social cues and emergent behaviors in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), BP.DR

Abstract

Studies conducted with animals contribute to the understanding of human behavior. The canine species is particularly interesting for comparative studies with humans because of the obvious sensitivity of these animals to the reinforcement contingencies arranged by humans. Among the most investigated areas are communication skills between dogs and humans, and there is evidence that dogs respond under control of social cues provided by humans. However, there are contrasting data on the tendency or not to spontaneously follow, that is, without previous training, certain types of social cues for dogs of different ages. There is also evidence that the performance of sheltered dogs differ from the performance of pet dogs that live with their owners, possibly due to differences in degree of interaction of these animals with humans. Most of the investigations on the topic, however, exclusively involve pet dogs. For this reason, it is interesting to extend these studies to dogs living in shelters. Investigation of the performance shown in spontaneously responding to social cues at different ages and the evaluation of this performance in sheltered dogs helps understanding the role of learning and interaction opportunities with humans in this performance. Thus, this project aims to investigate the performance of sheltered dogs of different ages in spontaneously responding to different types of social cues emitted by humans in two-choice tasks. Comparisons between the performance of subjects in the same group or different groups will be done by evaluating the number of correct responses and appropriate statistical tests. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ZAINE, ISABELA; DOMENICONI, CAMILA; WYNNE, CLIVE D. L.. The ontogeny of human point following in dogs: When younger dogs outperform older. Behavioural Processes, v. 119, p. 76-85, OCT 2015. (13/00576-0, 11/06288-0)