How do guide dogs and pet dogs (Canis familiaris) ask their owners for their toy and for playing?

When apes are not fully understood by humans, they persist with attempts to communicate, elaborating their behaviours to better convey their meaning. Such abilities have never been investigated in dogs. The present study aimed to clarify any effect of the visual attentional state of the owner on dogs’ (Canis familiaris) social-communicative signals for interacting with humans, and to determine whether dogs persist and elaborate their behaviour in the face of failure to communicate a request. Gaze at a hidden target or at the owner, gaze alternation between a hidden target and the owner, vocalisations and contacts in 12 guide and 12 pet dogs were analysed (i) when the dogs were asked by their owners (blind or sighted) to fetch their inaccessible toy and (ii) when the dogs were subsequently given an unfamiliar object (apparent unsuccessful communication) or their toy (apparent successful communication). No group differences were found, indicating no effect of the visual status of the owner on the dogs’ socio-communicative modes (i.e. no sensitivity to human visual attention). Results, however, suggest that the dogs exhibited persistence (but not elaboration) in their “showing” behaviours in each condition, except that in which the toy was returned. Thus, their communication was about a specific item in space (the toy). The results suggest that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: (i) to get their inaccessible toy, the dogs gazed at their owners as if to trigger their attention; gaze alternation between the owner and the target direction, and two behaviours directed at the target were performed, apparently to indicate the location of the hidden toy; (ii) after the delivery of the toy, the dogs behaved as if they returned to the play routine, gazing at their owner whilst holding their toy. In conclusion, this study shows that dogs possess partially intentional non-verbal deictic abilities: they exhibit successive visual orienting between a partner and objects, apparent attention-getting behaviours, no sensitivity to the visual status of humans for communication, and persistence in (but no elaboration of) communicative behaviours when apparent attempts to “manipulate” the human partner fail.     

Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

Organisms must often make predictions about the trajectories of moving objects. However, often these objects become hidden. To later locate such objects, the organism must maintain a representation of the object in memory and generate an expectation about where it will later appear. We explored adult dogs’ knowledge and use of the solidity principle (that one solid object cannot pass through another solid object) by evaluating search behavior. Subjects watched as a treat rolled down an inclined tube into a box. The box either did or did not contain a solid wall dividing it in half. To find the treat, subjects had to modify their search behavior based on the presence or absence of the wall, which either did or did not block the treat’s trajectory. Dogs correctly searched the near location when the barrier was present and the far location when the barrier was absent. They displayed this behavior from the first trial, as well as performed correctly when trial types were intermingled. These results suggest that dogs direct their searches in accordance with the solidity principle.     

A comparative approach to dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and human infants’ comprehension of various forms of pointing gestures

We investigated whether dogs and 2-, and 3-year-old human infants living, in some respects, in very similar social environments are able to comprehend various forms of the human pointing gesture. In the first study, we looked at their ability to comprehend different arm pointing gestures (long cross-pointing, forward cross-pointing and elbow cross-pointing) to locate a hidden object. Three-year-olds successfully used all gestures as directional cues, while younger children and dogs could not understand the elbow cross-pointing. Dogs were also unsuccessful with the forward cross-pointing. In the second study, we used unfamiliar pointing gestures i.e. using a leg as indicator (pointing with leg, leg cross-pointing, pointing with knee). All subjects were successful with leg pointing gestures, but only older children were able to comprehend the pointing with knee. We suggest that 3-year-old children are able to rely on the direction of the index finger, and show the strongest ability to generalize to unfamiliar gestures. Although some capacity to generalize is also evident in younger children and dogs, especially the latter appear biased in the use of protruding body parts as directional signals.     

The effect of experience and of dots’ density and duration on the detection of coherent motion in dogs

Knowledge about the mechanisms underlying canine vision is far from being exhaustive, especially that concerning post-retinal elaboration. One aspect that has received little attention is motion perception, and in spite of the common belief that dogs are extremely apt at detecting moving stimuli, there is no scientific support for such an assumption. In fact, we recently showed that dogs have higher thresholds than humans for coherent motion detection (Kanizsar et al. in Sci Rep UK 7:11259, 2017). This term refers to the ability of the visual system to perceive several units moving in the same direction, as one coherently moving global unit. Coherent motion perception is commonly investigated using random dot displays, containing variable proportions of coherently moving dots. Here, we investigated the relative contribution of local and global integration mechanisms for coherent motion perception, and changes in detection thresholds as a result of repeated exposure to the experimental stimuli. Dogs who had been involved in the previous study were given a conditioned discrimination task, in which we systematically manipulated dot density and duration and, eventually, re-assessed our subjects’ threshold after extensive exposure to the stimuli. Decreasing dot duration impacted on dogs’ accuracy in detecting coherent motion only at very low duration values, revealing the efficacy of local integration mechanisms. Density impacted on dogs’ accuracy in a linear fashion, indicating less efficient global integration. There was limited evidence of improvement in the re-assessment but, with an average threshold at re-assessment of 29%, dogs’ ability to detect coherent motion remains much poorer than that of humans.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) understand invisible displacement?

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) perform above chance on invisible displacement tasks despite showing few other signs of possessing the necessary representational abilities. Four experiments investigated how dogs find an object that has been hidden in 1 of 3 opaque boxes. Dogs passed the task under a variety of control conditions, but only if the device used to displace the object ended up adjacent to the target box after the displacement. These results suggest that the search behavior of dogs was guided by simple associative rules rather than mental representation of the object's past trajectory. In contrast, Experiment 5 found that on the same task, 18- and 24-month-old children showed no disparity between trials in which the displacement device was adjacent or nonadjacent to the target box.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) show contagious yawning?

We report an experimental investigation into whether domesticated dogs display contagious yawning. Fifteen dogs were shown video clips of (1) humans and (2) dogs displaying yawns and open-mouth expressions (not yawns) to investigate whether dogs showed contagious yawning to either of these social stimuli. Only one dog performed significantly more yawns during or shortly after viewing yawning videos than to the open-mouth videos, and most of these yawns occurred to the human videos. No dogs showed significantly more yawning to the open-mouth videos (human or dog). The percentage of dogs showing contagious yawning was less than chimpanzees and humans showing this behavior, and considerably less than a recently published report investigating this behavior in dogs (Joly-Mascheroni et al. in Biol Lett 4:446–448, 2008).     

Meowing dogs: can dogs recognize cats in a cross-modal violation of expectancy task (Canis familiaris)?

Animal Cognition - Dogs can recognize conspecifics in cross-modal audio–video presentations. In this paper, we aimed at exploring if such capability extends to the recognition of cats, and...     

How do guide dogs of blind owners and pet dogs of sighted owners (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>) ask their owners for food?

Although there are some indications that dogs (Canis familiaris) use the eyes of humans as a cue during human-dog interactions, the exact conditions under which this holds true are unclear. Analysing whether the interactive modalities of guide dogs and pet dogs differ when they interact with their blind, and sighted owners, respectively, is one way to tackle this problem; more specifically, it allows examining the effect of the visual status of the owner. The interactive behaviours of dogs were recorded when the dogs were prevented from accessing food that they had previously learned to access. A novel audible behaviour was observed: dogs licked their mouths sonorously. Data analyses showed that the guide dogs performed this behaviour longer and more frequently than the pet dogs; seven of the nine guide dogs and two of the nine pet dogs displayed this behaviour. However, gazing at the container where the food was and gazing at the owner (with or without sonorous mouth licking), gaze alternation between the container and the owner, vocalisation and contact with the owner did not differ between groups. Together, the results suggest that there is no overall distinction between guide and pet dogs in exploratory, learning and motivational behaviours and in their understanding of their owner's attentional state, i.e. guide dogs do not understand that their owner cannot see (them). However, results show that guide dogs are subject to incidental learning and suggest that they supplemented their way to trigger their owners' attention with a new distal cue.     

What do dogs (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Canis familiaris</Emphasis>) see? A review of vision in dogs and implications for cognition research

Over the last 20 years, a large amount of research has been conducted in an attempt to uncover the cognitive abilities of the domestic dog. While substantial advancements have been made, progress has been impeded by the fact that little is known about how dogs visually perceive their external environment. It is imperative that future research determines more precisely canine visual processing capabilities, particularly considering the increasing number of studies assessing cognition via paradigms requiring vision. This review discusses current research on visual cognition and emphasizes the importance of understanding dog visual processing. We review several areas of vision research in domestic dogs, such as sensitivity to light, visual perspective, visual acuity, form perception, and color vision, with a focus on how these abilities may affect performance in cognition tasks. Additionally, we consider the immense diversity seen in dog morphology and explore ways in which these physical differences, particularly in facial morphology, may result in, or perhaps even be caused by, different visual processing capacities in dogs. Finally, we suggest future directions for research in dog vision and cognition.     

Domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) choices in reference to information provided by human and artificial hands

Even young humans show sensitivity to the accuracy and reliability of informants’ reports. Children are selective in soliciting information and in accepting claims. Recent research has also investigated domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) sensitivity to agreement among human informants. Such research utilizing a common human pointing gesture to which dogs are sensitive in a food retrieval paradigm suggests that dogs might choose among informants according to the number of points exhibited, rather than the number of individuals indicating a particular location. Here, we further investigated dogs’ use of information from human informants using a stationary pointing gesture, as well as the conditions under which dogs would utilize a stationary point. First, we explored whether the number of points or the number of individuals more strongly influenced dogs’ choices. To this end, dogs encountered a choice situation in which the number of points exhibited toward a particular location and the number of individuals exhibiting those points conflicted. Results indicated that dogs chose in accordance with the number of points exhibited toward a particular location. In a second experiment, we explored the possibility that previously learned associations drove dogs’ responses to the stationary pointing gesture. In this experiment, dogs encountered a choice situation in which artificial hands exhibited a stationary pointing gesture toward or away from choice locations in the absence of humans. Dogs chose the location to which the artificial hand pointed. These results are consistent with the notion that dogs may respond to a human pointing gesture due to their past-learning history.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) seek help in an emergency?

The question of whether dogs recognize an emergency and understand the need to seek help from a bystander was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, dogs' owners feigned a heart attack in an open field, and in the second experiment, dogs' owners experienced an accident in which a bookcase fell on them and pinned them to the floor. In these experiments, one or two bystanders were available to which dogs could go for help. The dogs' behavior was taped for 6 min after the owner had fallen and was later scored for the frequency and time the dogs spent performing different behaviors. In no case did a dog solicit help from a bystander. It is concluded that dogs did not understand the nature of the emergency or the need to obtain help.     

The Paradox of Wuwei? Yes (and No)

This essay considers P. J. Ivanhoe's critical challenge to Slingerland's analysis of wuwei(‘effortless action’). While I agree with Ivanhoe that we should do more work to embody and understand the concept of wuwei, I will defend Slingerland's notion that wuwei involves paradox—particularly in the cases of Zhuangi and Laozi. The present essay is not a defense of the specifics of Slingerland's analysis. Nonetheless, this essay focuses on defending the notion of paradox. Ivanhoe offers an alternative view of wuwei, one that sees the paradox as a riddle. I argue that this kind of formulation would frame the problem of wuwei in an unhelpful manner. I offer several novel ways of overcoming, or at least qualifying, the experience of paradox that seems to be at play in nondoing.     

Patterns of theorizing about chess skill – Commentary on Linhares and Freitas (2010) and Lane and Gobet (2011)

Although Linhares and Freitas (2010) have failed to characterize earlier experimental work in chess skill accurately, their conceptual approach of “experience-recognition”-driven problem solving points to the need to incorporate analogical reasoning mechanisms into explanations of how chess players choose the best move in chess. The Lane and Gobet (2011) commentary and the cognitive simulation models that they espouse consist of plausible mechanisms to support choosing a good move, but need additional development to incorporate abstract/semantic information. One possible avenue for future exploration will be to produce hybrid models that use both “piece-on-square” chunk and template representations and abstract high-level representations to guide search in chess.     

Domestic dogs’ (Canis familiaris) choices in reference to agreement among human informants on location of food

When interacting with others, informants may offer conflicting information or information of varying accuracy. Recent research suggests that young children do not trust all informants equally and are selective in both whom they solicit for information and whose claims they support. We explored whether domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) are similarly sensitive to agreement among informants. To this end, we utilized a common human gesture, pointing, to which recent research suggests dogs are sensitive. We conducted two experiments in which an experimenter secretly hid food in one of two clear containers while the dog was distracted. Next, a small group moved to indicate the food's location using stationary points positioned above the containers. In Experiment 1, two experimenters moved to stand behind the non-baited container, while a third experimenter moved to stand behind the baited container. Then, all directed one static point at the container in front of them. Experiment 2 exactly resembled Experiment 1 with the exception that the single experimenter standing behind the baited container directed two static points at the container (one with each hand). Dogs chose the container indicated by the majority in Experiment 1 significantly more often than chance, but chose the container indicated by the minority in Experiment 2 significantly more often than chance. This suggests that the number of points, not the number of people, more strongly influenced dogs' choices.     

Beyond the distributional input? A developmental investigation of asymmetry in infants’ categorization of cats and dogs

Two experiments are reported using a visual familiarization categorization procedure. In both experiments, infants were familiarized with sets of stimuli previously shown to contain asymmetric feature distributions that support an asymmetry in young infants' categorization of cats and dogs (i.e. infants' cat category excludes dogs but their dog category includes cats). In Experiment 1, the asymmetry was replicated in 4-month-old infants. In contrast, 10-month-old infants demonstrated exclusive category representations for both cats and dogs. In Experiment 2, an additional group of 10-month-olds demonstrated exclusive representations for both cats and dogs under conditions of very limited within-task category familiarization. Potential mechanisms underlying the shift from an asymmetric to a symmetric pattern of categorization in the first year are discussed.     

Validation of the French version of Brandtstädter and Renner's Tenacious Goal Pursuit (TGP) and Flexible Goal Adjustment (FGA) scales

IntroductionDespite the potential usefulness of the TGP/FGA scales (Brandtstädter and Renner, 1990) for studying the way people adapt with age, there is little psychometric evidence supporting the validity of the construct of either scale.ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to develop a French version of Brandtstädter's TGP/FGA scales in order to provide a self-report measure for French people in the field of gerontology.MethodTwo studies involving 677 participants were conducted to evaluate the construct validity, reliability and convergence validity of these scales.ResultsIn accordance with Brandtstädter, two factors emerged from the exploratory factorial analysis (study 1): tenacious goal pursuit and flexible goal adjustment. However, 10 items were removed because of factorial loadings. A confirmatory factor analysis (study 2) of the 20 remaining items corroborated a two-factor uncorrelated model of the TGP/FGA scales. The simplified subscales showed good internal consistency. As expected, higher scores on the TGP/FGA scales were correlated with good life satisfaction, greater control and less depression. Finally, the TGP scale was negatively related to age, but the FGA was not.ConclusionThe French adaptation of the TGP/FGA scales was shown to possess satisfactory psychometric properties and may therefore be a valuable instrument for researchers and clinicians who are interested in exploring adaptive processes in the maintenance and promotion of personal well-being.     

Changes in Psychology of Women and Psychology of Gender Textbooks (1975–2010)

In this section, four authors contributed their thoughts on how writing textbooks on the psychology of women and gender has changed over the last 35 years. The introduction summarizes common themes in these reflections: the explosion in research and theory about women and gender; increased inclusion of diversity and intersectionality; increased appreciation of the power of the social context and power itself; the challenge of keeping a feminist perspective; changes in the student population; and changes in the publishing industry. Some comments about the future of the field are included.