Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris)

Animal Cognition
Zsófia ViranyiAdám Miklósi

Abstract

Dogs have a remarkable skill to use human-given cues in object-choice tasks, but little is known to what extent their closest wild-living relative, the wolf can achieve this performance. In Study 1, we compared wolf and dog pups hand-reared individually and pet dogs of the same age in their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter in an object-choice task and to follow her pointing gesture. The results showed that dogs already at 4 months of age use momentary distal pointing to find hidden food even without intensive early socialization. Wolf pups, on the contrary, do not attend to this subtle pointing. Accordingly in Studies 2 and 3, these wolves were tested longitudinally with this and four other (easier) human-given cues. This revealed that wolves socialized at a comparable level to dogs are able to use simple human-given cues spontaneously if the human's hand is close to the baited container (e.g. touching, proximal pointing). Study 4 showed that wolves can follow also momentary distal pointing similarly to dogs if they have received extensive formal training. Comparing the wolves to naïve pet dogs of the same age revealed that during several months of formal training wolves can reach the level of dogs in the...Continue Reading

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Citations

Feb 6, 2008·Animal Cognition·Katalin MarosAdám Miklósi
Jun 11, 2008·Animal Cognition·Nicolas GiretDalila Bovet
Oct 18, 2008·Animal Cognition·Kun GuoDaniel Mills
Jan 9, 2009·Animal Cognition·Márta GácsiAdám Miklósi
Jul 10, 2009·Animal Cognition·Leanne Proops, Karen McComb
Sep 26, 2009·Animal Cognition·Bradley P Smith, Carla A Litchfield
Mar 30, 2011·Animal Cognition·Friederike RangeZsófia Virányi
Jul 14, 2011·Animal Cognition·Sandra MikolaschChristian Schloegl
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Jul 28, 2009·Behavioral and Brain Functions : BBF·Márta GácsiAdám Miklósi

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