Lakatos Gabriella, Soproni Krisztina, Dóka Antal, Miklósi Adám
Department of Ethology, Eötvös University Budapest, Pázmány P. sétány 1c., 1117, Budapest, Hungary.
Anim Cogn. 2009 Jul;12(4):621-31. doi: 10.1007/s10071-009-0221-4. Epub 2009 Apr 3.
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.
我们研究了生活在某些非常相似社会环境中的狗以及2岁和3岁的人类婴儿是否能够理解各种形式的人类指示手势。在第一项研究中，我们观察了他们理解不同手臂指示手势（长交叉指示、向前交叉指示和肘部交叉指示）以找到隐藏物体的能力。3岁的儿童成功地将所有手势用作方向线索，而年幼儿童和狗无法理解肘部交叉指示。狗对向前交叉指示也不成功。在第二项研究中，我们使用了不熟悉的指示手势，即用腿作为指示物（用腿指示、腿交叉指示、用膝盖指示）。所有受试者对用腿指示的手势都能成功，但只有年龄较大的儿童能够理解用膝盖指示。我们认为3岁的儿童能够依靠食指的方向，并且表现出最强的将其推广到不熟悉手势的能力。虽然年幼儿童和狗也有一定的推广能力，特别是后者似乎倾向于使用突出的身体部位作为方向信号。
