Selective attention to humans in companion dogs, Canis familiaris

The influence of body region, handler familiarity and order of region handled on the domestic cat's response to being stroked

“…While previous studies investigating dog-human relationships have found familiarity of the human to be an important factor in predicting the dogs' behaviour (e.g. Mongillo et al, 2010), a recent study has shown that it is the quality of the relationship with the familiar person that is crucial in determining the behavioural outcome of the dog (Horn et al, 2013). Future studies examining the influence of familiarity of the handler on behavioural outcomes of the cat should therefore focus on the type and quality of relationship the cat has with its owner.…”

Perspectives: The Looking Time Experimental Paradigm in Studies of Animal Visual Perception and Cognition

“…), direct preferential attention toward their owner (Mongillo et al. ), recognize the correspondence between their owner's face and voice (Adachi et al. ), differentially respond to communicative behaviors (Téglás et al.…”

Gazing toward humans: A study on water rescue dogs using the impossible task paradigm

“…Since some studies suggest that dogs show preferential attention and gazing toward their owner compared to an unfamiliar experimenter (Miklósi et al, 2005;Mongillo et al, 2010), a second goal of this study was to evaluate whether water rescue training would determine a greater tendency of dogs to gaze toward their reference figure (the owner), rather than toward a stranger when facing an unsolvable task. Recently, it has been demonstrated that dogs direct their attention significantly more to a familiar human than to a stranger only when the familiar person has a close relationship with them, based on joint activities and frequent feeding (Horn et al, 2013), as is the case of a water rescue team.…”