Abstract
Several articles have been recently published on dogs’ (Canis familiaris) performance in two-way object choice experiments in which subjects had to find hidden food by utilizing human pointing. The interpretation of results has led to a vivid theoretical debate about the cognitive background of human gestural signal understanding in dogs, despite the fact that many important details of the testing method have not yet been standardized. We report three experiments that aim to reveal how some procedural differences influence adult companion dogs’ performance in these tests. Utilizing a large sample in Experiment 1, we provide evidence that neither the keeping conditions (garden/house) nor the location of the testing (outdoor/indoor) affect a dogs’ performance. In Experiment 2, we compare dogs’ performance using three different types of pointing gestures. Dogs’ performance varied between momentary distal and momentary cross-pointing but “low” and “high” performer dogs chose uniformly better than chance level if they responded to sustained pointing gestures with reinforcement (food reward and a clicking sound; “clicker pointing”). In Experiment 3, we show that single features of the aforementioned “clicker pointing” method can slightly improve dogs’ success rate if they were added one by one to the momentary distal pointing method. These results provide evidence that although companion dogs show a robust performance at different testing locations regardless of their keeping conditions, the exact execution of the human gesture and additional reinforcement techniques have substantial effect on the outcomes. Consequently, researchers should standardize their methodology before engaging in debates on the comparative aspects of socio-cognitive skills because the procedures they utilize may differ in sensitivity for detecting differences.
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Notes
In the case of Experiment 2, the authors did their best efforts to replicate faithfully the pointing procedure used by Udell et al. (2008a). However, possible minor discrepancies between the two methods were unfortunately impossible to avoid because there was no video material recorded of the original tests of Udell et al. (2008a). The authors are grateful for the kind and professional help from Monique Udell, who assessed the video footage of the testing process and the method section of this paper. Although personal communication between M. U. and the authors of the present article confirmed that there were some discrepancies between the two methodologies, in the opinion of the authors, the present paper can be regarded as a replication of the corresponding experiment of Udell et al. (2008a).
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Acknowledgments
This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and it was also funded by the grants from the European Union FP7-ICT-2007 LIREC 215554, the ETOCOM project (TÁMOP-4.2.2-08/1/KMR-2008-0007) through the Hungarian National Development Agency in the framework of the Social Renewal Operative Programme supported by the EU and co-financed by the European Social Fund and the Hungarian Ministry of Education OTKA K82020. The authors are grateful to Celeste R. Pongrácz for correcting the English language of the manuscript.Footnote 1
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Pongrácz, P., Gácsi, M., Hegedüs, D. et al. Test sensitivity is important for detecting variability in pointing comprehension in canines. Anim Cogn 16, 721–735 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0607-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0607-1