Verbal Attention Getting as a Key Factor in Social Learning Between Dog (Canis familiaris ) and Human

Pet dogs ( Canis familiaris ) learn to detour a V -shaped fence effectively from an unfamiliar human demonstrator. In this article, 4 main features of the demonstrator's behavior are highlighted: (a) the manipulation of the target, (b) the familiarity of the demonstrator, (c) the role of verbal...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of comparative psychology (1983) 2004-12, Vol.118 (4), p.375-383
Main Authors: Pongracz, Peter, Miklosi, Adam, Timar-Geng, Katalin, Csanyi, Vilmos
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal
Animal behavior
Animal training
Animals
Attention
Dogs
Female
Human
Humans
Interspecies Interaction
Learning
Male
Pets
Social Behavior
Social Learning
Socialization
Speech
Task Performance and Analysis
Verbal learning
Videotape Recording
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pet dogs ( Canis familiaris ) learn to detour a V -shaped fence effectively from an unfamiliar human demonstrator. In this article, 4 main features of the demonstrator's behavior are highlighted: (a) the manipulation of the target, (b) the familiarity of the demonstrator, (c) the role of verbal attention-getting behavior, and (d) whether a strange trained dog could also be an effective demonstrator. The results show that the main factor of a successful human demonstration is the continuous verbal communication with the dog during detouring. It was also found that an unfamiliar dog demonstrator was as efficient as the unfamiliar experimenter. The experiments provide evidence that in adult dogs, communicative context with humans is needed for effective interspecific social learning to take place.
ISSN:0735-7036
1939-2087
DOI:10.1037/0735-7036.118.4.375