Effect of reinforcement, reinforcer omission and extinction on a communicative response in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)

Cross-modal discrimination of human gender by domestic dogs

“…Shelter-housed dogs, which have had less social experience with people, are also more likely to show feareappeasement behaviour in response to unfamiliar people than dogs with more experience (Barrera, Jakovcevic, Elgier, Mustaca, & Bentosela, 2010). Although human-directed gaze in dogs is strongly affected by previous reinforcement (Bentosela, Barrera, Jakovcevic, Elgier, & Mustaca, 2008), sociability also plays an important role in looking towards unfamiliar people, as after receiving positive reinforcement training for gazing at the experimenter's face, dogs scoring higher in their level of sociability towards an unfamiliar person gazed for significantly longer at the experimenter's face during extinction trials, when the behaviour was no longer reinforced (Jakovcevic, Mustaca, & Bentosela, 2012). Therefore, we suggest that dogs living in smaller households were more socially anxious during the study, and therefore were more likely to direct their gaze away from the more salient person who they perceived was speaking.…”

Can your dog read your mind? Understanding the causes of canine perspective taking

“…Comparing the rates of acquisition of responsiveness to blind and seeing people permitted a more sensitive test of any difference in the canids' responsiveness in these two conditions. Past research has shown that pet dogs can learn to perform above chance on object choice tasks requiring the use of novel gestures within 10 experimental trials (Udell, Giglio, & Wynne 2008b) and to look at a human for food reinforcement in as few as 3 trials (Bentosela, Barrera, Jakovcevic, Elgier, & Mustaca 2008). Wolves have also been shown to learn to respond appropriately to human cues with additional exposure (Virányi et al, 2008) in cases in which they were initially unsuccessful.…”

Mira lo que te muestro:¿Comunicación referencial entre perros domésticos (canis familiaris) y humanos?

“…Si bien los perros poseen habilidades cognitivas para detectar claves atencionales humanas, seguir la dirección de la cabeza o bien dirigir su atención, solamente se manifiestan en contextos donde hay un refor zador relevante en juego. A su vez, cuando este refuerzo ya no es conseguido, la comunicación cesa (Bentosela et al, 2008). Esto sugiere que se comunicarían con los humanos de manera imperativa, solicitando que realicen una conducta para conseguir su objetivo.…”

“…A su vez, disminuye cuando se elimina la entrega del reforzador (i.e., extinción: Ben tosela, Barrera, Jakovcevic, Elgier & Mustaca, 2008;Jakovcevic et al, 2010), se refuerza una conducta alternativa (omisión: Bentosela et al, 2008) o se entrega un alimento menos preferido (Bentosela, Jakovcevic, Elgier, Mustaca & Papini, 2009). Asimismo, se encontraron resultados similares en una especie de cánidos no domesticados y poco socializados, los zorros Pampa (Lycalopex gymnocercus, Barrera, Mustaca & Bentosela, 2010).…”