Familiarity with humans affect dogs’ tendencies to follow human majority groups

Abstract

Recently, copying others' behaviour has attracted attention among researchers. It aids individuals in reducing uncertainty about the knowledge of the environment and helps them in acquiring an adaptive behaviour at a lower cost than by learning it by themselves. Among the copying strategies, conformity, which is the copying of behavioural decisions presented by the majority, has been well studied and reported in many animals, including humans. The previous study showed that dogs did not conform to their multiple conspecific individuals; however, dogs have evolved to increase their adaptability while living with humans, and it is plausible that dogs have selected appropriate behaviour according to the behaviour of humans. Therefore, we investigated which factors influenced the choice of dogs in a situation where they have to choose one of two numerically unbalanced human groups. The results showed that the dogs followed the human majority group under certain conditions, depending on the familiarity with the human demonstrators. These results are important in considering the significance of groups for dogs and the factors of group formation, and will also provide a clue as to how dogs have penetrated into human society.Dogs (Canis familiaris) have coexisted with humans for more than 30,000 years and are woven into human society as partners to humans. Interactions between dogs and humans affect both species' endocrine systems and produce a positive loop of bonding via oxytocin 1 . This oxytocinergic bonding is commonly found in strong intraspecies connections, such as those between mother-infant and mating partners 2 , and it contributes to the survival of themselves and their offspring. Dogs are suggested to have had acquired human-like communication skills as a by-product of the mutation of the stress response endocrine system during the domestication process 3 , and as a result, humans and dogs may have become able to coexist by applying this bonding system to each other beyond species. Dogs have high sensitivity to human gaze direction and attention status 4-8 and change their behaviour depending on humans. They often naturally behave similarly to humans, and prefer humans who synchronise with them 9 . They can also copy human actions at various levels, such as mimicry, automatic imitation, behavioural synchronisation, selective imitation, and over-imitation, which may also indicate a high sensitivity of dogs to human behaviour 10-16 .In decision-making, copying the behaviours of others is an effective way to reduce uncertainty about the environmental knowledge, and can help individuals to acquire an adaptive behaviour at a lower cost than by learning it by themselves. Among the copying strategies, conformity, that is copying the behavioural decision presented by the majority, has been well studied in many animals 17,18 . Since conformity was first reported in humans, some studies were conducted on primates, such as comparisons among human infants, chimpanzees, and orangutans, to investigate its evolutionary roo...

The Gaze Communications Between Dogs/Cats and Humans: Recent Research Review and Future Directions

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“…Used human pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Miklosi et al, 2005 Used human pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Miklosi et al, 2005 Used human gaze direction with pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Hare et al, 2002 Looked in the direction indicated by human gaze (with head movements) Pongrácz et al, 2019 Looked in the direction directed by human gaze (with head movements) Agnetta et al, 2000;Hare et al, 1998;Met et al, 2014;Téglás et al, 2012 Followed the container that humans visited in a situation with two food containers Chijiiwa et al, 2020 Followed the container that humans visited in a situation with two food containers Chijiiwa et al, 2020;Nagasawa et al, 2020 Social reference…”

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Corrigendum: The Gaze Communications Between Dogs/Cats and Humans: Recent Research Review and Future Directions

“…Used human pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Miklosi et al, 2005 Used human pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Miklosi et al, 2005 Used human gaze direction with pointing in the task of selecting one of two containers Hare et al, 2002 Looked in the direction indicated by human gaze (with head movements) Pongrácz et al, 2019 Looked in the direction directed by human gaze (with head movements) Hare et al, 1998;Agnetta et al, 2000;Téglás et al, 2012;Met et al, 2014 Followed the container that humans visited in a situation with two food containers Chijiiwa et al, 2020 Followed the container that humans visited in a situation with two food containers Chijiiwa et al, 2020;Nagasawa et al, 2020 Social reference…”