Interspecific behavioural synchronization: dogs exhibit locomotor synchrony with humans

Abstract

Behavioural synchronization is widespread among living beings, including humans. Pairs of humans synchronize their behaviour in various situations, such as walking together. Affiliation between dyadic partners is known to promote behavioral synchronization. Surprisingly, however, interspecific synchronization has recived little scientific investigation. Dogs are sensitive to human cues, and share strong affiliative bonds with their owners. We thus investigated whether, when allowed to move freely in an enclosed unfamiliar space, dogs synchronize their behaviour with that of their owners’. We found that dogs visibly synchronized their location with their owner (staying in close proximity and moving to the same area), as well as their activity and temporal changes in activity (moving when their owner moved, standing still when their owner stood still, and gazing in the same direction as their owner). The present study demonstrates that owners act as attractors for their dogs in an indoor space, as mothers do for their children.

Behavioral synchronization and affiliation: Dogs exhibit human-like skills

“…However, when we looked at behavioral synchronization between affiliated partners, we found that pet dogs exhibited a high level of behavioral synchronization, whichever breed was tested (e.g., Duranton et al, 2017c), and it may therefore have evolved during early domestication (i.e., before modern artificial selection). Such an hypotheses would be consistent with the fact that no effect of sex was either found on dogs' behavioral synchronization with humans (Duranton et al, 2017a(Duranton et al, , 2018a(Duranton et al, , 2018b(Duranton et al, , 2018c, suggesting that this social skill might have been broadly selected through early domestication in all dogs. It is likely that ability to synchronize with humans, and sensitivity to human's behavioral synchronization, are two skills that have been selected for at different times in dogs' evolutionary history.…”

“…Interestingly, breed never influenced the dogs' behavioral synchronization towards their human referent, whatever the condition. As soon as their owners started moving, the pet dogs engaged in high degree of behavioral synchronization (when walking inside: Duranton et al, 2017a; when walking outside: Duranton et al, 2017b; when encountering an unfamiliar person, approach condition, and retreat condition: Duranton et al, 2016). Moreover, when shelter dogs displayed behavioral synchronization, we found no influence of breed group on their behavior (Duranton et al, 2017b).…”

“…Additionally, walking behavior has been once previously suggested to be a good model for the study of behavioral synchronization between dogs and owners (Kubinyi, Miklósi, Topál, & Csányi, 2003). Duranton, Bedossa, and Gaunet (2017a) thus investigated whether, when allowed to move freely in an enclosed, unfamiliar space, pet dogs synchronize their locomotor behavior with that of their owners (see Fig. 1a).…”

“…Dogs exhibit local synchrony (they stay close and move to the same direction as their owner), temporal synchrony (they change from still to move, or move to still, when the owner changes), and activity synchrony (they are still when the owner is still, walk when the owner walks at a regular pace, and move fast-trotting or running-when the owner walks fast). Adapted from Duranton et al (2017aDuranton et al ( , 2018a (staying in close proximity and moving to the same area), as well as their activity and temporal changes in activity (moving when their owner moved, standing still when their owner stood still, and gazing in the same direction as their owner). The study thus demonstrated the existence of dogs' behavioral synchronization towards their owners.…”

“…Additionally, the testing room was an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar place for the dog-owner dyads. Even if dogs were given a 15-minutes period to explore and become acquainted with the place, and the authors controlled for stress (Duranton et al, 2017a), it is possible that dogs' reactions were different from their behavior in more familiar areas. To extend the knowledge of the cognitive properties of interspecies synchronization, investigating dogs' behavioral synchronization in more usual and familiar areas, in which dogs were used to move with their owners, was thus done when owners went for an outside walk with their dogs.…”