Abstract
Introduction
Converging evidence suggests that the presence of (attentive) others has a positive effect on people’s propensity to conform to social rules. It is also increasingly accepted that pet dogs are promising test subjects to study non-human analogues of ‘audience effect.’ This study investigates whether dogs show a tendency to change their behavior according to the visual attention of familiar and unfamiliar human partners in a situation in which human partners disallowed the dog from eating a piece of food.
Methods
Dogs (n = 64) participated in two observational conditions (Attentive Owner and Attentive Experimenter) and a control condition in which both human participants engaged in distracting activity.
Results
The results showed that the identity of the attentive or inattentive partner has little relevance to the dogs’ gazing behavior (i.e., head orientation toward the different partners and the food) and their decisions about breaking or following the rule. This is in line with previous studies suggesting that the presence of the owner predominantly determines the dogs’ responses to such situations.
Discussion
Further analysis of dogs responding differently to the obedience challenge showed marked differences in the role of the ‘audience effect’ might play in modulating ‘fully obedient,’ ‘ignorer,’ and ‘hesitating’ dogs’ gazing behavior. These findings point to the context-dependent nature of the audience effect in dogs and highlight the importance of frequently ignored individual differences in dogs’ tendency to conform to the situational rules.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Ariely, D., Bracha, A., Meier, S. (2009) Doing good or doing well? Image motivation and monetary incentives in behaving prosocially. Am. Econ. Rev. 99, 544–555.
Bateson, M., Nettle, D., Roberts, G. (2006) Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biol. Lett. 2(3), 412–414.
Bond, C. F. (1982) Social facilitation: a self-presentational view. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 42(6), 1042–1050.
Brandt, H., Hauert, C., Sigmund, K. (2003) Punishment and reputation in spatial public goods games. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 270, 1099–1104.
Bräuer, J., Call, J., Tomasello, M. (2004) Visual perspective taking in dogs (Canis familiaris) in the presence of barriers. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 88, 299–317.
Call, J., Bräuer, J., Kaminski, J., Tomasello, M. (2003) Domestic dog (Canis familiaris) are sensitive to the attentional state of humans. J. Comp. Psychol. 117, 257–263.
Coppinger, B., Cannistraci, R. A., Karaman, F., Kyle, S. C, Hobson, E. A., Freeberg, T. M., Haya, J. F. (2017) Studying audience effects in animals: what we can learn from human language research. Anim. Behav. 124, 161–165.
Demuru, E., Ferrari, P. F., Palagi, E. (2015) Emotionality and intentionality in bonobo playful communication. Anim. Cogn. 18, 333–344.
Dindo, M., de Waal, F. B. M. (2007) Partner effects on food consumption in brown capuchin monkeys. Am. J. Primatol. 9, 1–9.
Engelmann, D., Fischbacher, U. (2009) Indirect reciprocity and strategic reputation building in an experimental helping game. Games Econ. Behav. 67, 399–407.
Engelmann, I. M., Herrmann, E., Tomasello, M. (2015) The effects of being watched on resource acquisition in chimpanzees and human children. Anim. Cogn. 19(1), 147–151.
Engelmann, J. M., Over, H., Herrmann, E., Tomasello, M. (2013) Young children care more about their reputations with in- group members and potential reciprocators. Dev. Sci. 16(6), 952–958.
Evans, C. S., Marier, P. (1994) Food calling and audience effects in male chickens, Gallus gallus: their relationships to food availability, courtship and social facilitation. Anim. Behav. 47(5), 1159–1170.
Gácsi, M., Miklósi, A., Varga, O., Topál, J., Csányi, V. (2004) Are readers of our face readers of our minds? Dogs (Canis familiaris) show situation-dependent cognition of human’s attention. Anim. Cogn. 7(3), 144–153.
Gerencsér, L., Bunford, N., Moesta, A., Miklósi, Á. (2018) Development and validation of the Canine Reward Responsiveness Scale - examining individual differences in reward responsiveness of the domestic dog. Sci. Rep. 8(1), 4421.
Haley, K. J., Fessier, D. M. (2005) Nobody’s watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evol. Hum. Behav. 26, 245–256.
Hare, B., Tomasello, M. (2004) Chimpanzees are more skilful in competitive than in cooperative cognitive tasks. Anim. Behav. 68(3), 571–581.
Hamilton, A. F. C., Lind, F. (2016) Audience effects: what can they tell us about social neuroscience, theory of mind and autism? Cult. Brain 4(2), 159–177.
Hecht, J., Miklósi, A., Gácsi, M. (2012) Behavioral assessment and owner perceptions of behaviors associated with guilt in dogs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 139, 134–142.
Kaitlin, E. W. L., Foulshamb, T., Kuhnc, G., Kingstonea, A. (2011) Potential social interactions are important to social attention. PNAS 108(14), 5548–5553.
Kaminski, J., Bräuer, J., Call, J., Tomasello, M. (2009) Domestic dogs are sensitive to human’s perspective. Behaviour 146(1), 979–998.
Kaminski, J., Pitsch, A., Tomasello, M. (2013) Dogs steal in the dark. Anim. Cogn. 16(3), 385–394.
Kaminski, J., Hynds, J., Morris, P., Waller, B. M. (2017) Human attention affects facial expressions in domestic dogs. Sci. Rep. 7, 12914.
Leavens, D. A., Russell, J. L., Hopkins, W. D. (2010) Multimodal communication by captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Anim. Cogn. 13, 33–40.
Leimgruber, K. L., Shaw, A., Santos, L. R., Olson, K. R. (2012) Young children are more generous when others are aware of their actions. PLoS One 7, e48292.
Liszkowski, U., Carpenter, M., Henning, A., Striano, T., Tomasello, M. (2004) Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Dev. Sci. 7(3), 297–307.
Marshall-Pescini, S., Colombo, E., Passalacqua, C., Merola, I., Prato-Previde, E. (2013) Gaze alternation in dogs and toddlers in an unsolvable task: evidence of an audience effect. Anim. Cogn. 16, 933–943.
Nettle, D., Cronin, K. A., Bateson, M. (2013a) Responses of chimpanzees to cues of conspecific observation. Anim. Behav. 86(3), 595–602.
Nettle, D., Harper, Z., Kidson, A., Stone, R., Penton-Voak, I. S., Bateson, M. (2013b) The watching eyes effect in the Dictator Game: it’s not how much you give, it’s being seen to give something. Evol. Hum. Behav. 34, 35–40.
Nowak, M. A., Sigmund, K. (2005) Evolution of indirect reciprocity. Nature. 437, 1291–1298.
Poss, S. R., Kuhar, C., Stoinski, T. S., Hopkins, W. D. (2006) Differential use of attentional and visual communicative signaling by orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) and gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) in response to the attentional status of a human. Am. J. Primatol. 68, 978–992.
Powell, K. L., Roberts, G., Nettle, D. (2012) Eye images increase charitable donations: evidence from an opportunistic field experiment in a supermarket. Ethology 118, 1096–1101.
Reynaud, A. J., Guedj, C., Hadj-Bouziane, F., Meunier, M., Monfardini, E. (2015) Social facilitation of cognition in rhesus monkeys: audience vs. coaction. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 9, 1–5.
Scheider, L., Waller, B. M., Oña, L., Burrows, A. M., Liebal, K. (2016) Social use of facial expressions in hylobatids. PLoS One 11, e0151733.
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, 169–175.
Schwartz, S. (2003) Separation anxiety syndrome in dogs and cats. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 222, 1526–1532.
Shaw, A., Montinari, N., Piovesan, M., Olson, K. R., Gino, F., Norton, M. I. (2014) Children develop a veil of fairness. J. Exp. Psychol General 143, 363–375.
Smith, A. R., Steinberg, L., Strang, N., Chein, J. (2014) Age differences in the impact of peers on adolescents’ and adults’ neural response to reward. Dev. Cogn. Neurosci. 11, 75–82.
Soproni, K., Miklòsi, À., Topàl, J., Csànyi, V. (2001) Comprehension of human communicative signs in pet dogs. J. Comp. Psychol. 115, 122–126.
Stamm, J. S. (1961) Social facilitation in monkeys. Psychol. Rep. 45, 479–484.
Sylwester, K., Roberts, G. (2010) Cooperators benefit through reputation-based partner choice in economic games. Biol. Lett. 6(5), 659–662.
Téglás, E., Gergely, A., Kupán, K., Miklósi, Á., Topál, J. (2012) Dogs’ gaze following is tuned to human communicative signals. Curr. Biol. 22, 209–212.
Therneau, T. M. (2015) A package for survival analysis in S. R Package 2, 38.
Topál, J., Gácsi, M. (2012) Lessons we should learn from our unique relationship with dogs: an ethological approach. In: Birke, L., Hockenhull, J. (eds.) Crossing Boundaries. Investigating Human-Animal Relationships. Brill Academic Press, Leiden, the Netherlands, pp. 163–187.
Virányi, Z., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. (2004) Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans’ attentional focus. Behav. Process. 66, 161–172.
Waller, B. M., Caeiro, C. C., Davila-Ross, M. (2015) Orangutans modify facial displays depending on recipient attention. Peer J. 3, e827.
Wolf, L. K., Bazargani, N., Kilford, E. J., Dumontheil, I., Blakemore, S. J. (2015) The audience effect in adolescence depends on who’s looking over your shoulder. J. Adolesc. 43, 5–14.
Zajonc, R. B. (1965) Social facilitation. Science 149(3681), 269–274.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changes — if any — are indicated. (SID_1)
To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Kiss, O., Topál, J. How do dogs monitor the human’s attentional state after challenged by the presence of forbidden food?. BIOLOGIA FUTURA 70, 103–111 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1556/019.70.2019.13
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1556/019.70.2019.13