Roberts William A, Macpherson Krista
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
Learn Behav. 2011 Dec;39(4):303-5. doi: 10.3758/s13420-011-0037-3.
Udell, Dorey, and Wynne (in press) have reported an experiment in which wolves, shelter dogs, and pet dogs all showed a significant preference for begging from a person who faced them (seer) over a person whose back was turned to them (blind experimenter). On tests with the blind person's eyes covered with a bucket, a book, or a camera, pet dogs showed more preference for the seer than did wolves and shelter dogs. We agree with the authors' position that most of these findings are best explained by preexperimental learning experienced by the subjects. We argue, however, that the perspective-taking task is not a good test of the domestication theory or of the theory of mind in dogs. The problem we see is that use of the perspective-taking task, combined with preexperimental learning in all the subjects, strongly biases the outcome in favor of a behavioral learning interpretation. Tasks less influenced by preexperimental training would provide less confounded tests of domestication and theory of mind.
乌代尔、多里和韦恩（即将发表）报告了一项实验，在该实验中，狼、收容所的狗和宠物狗都表现出明显更倾向于向面对它们的人（有视觉的人）乞讨，而不是向背对着它们的人（盲人实验者）乞讨。在用桶、书或相机遮住盲人眼睛的测试中，宠物狗比狼和收容所的狗更倾向于有视觉的人。我们同意作者的观点，即这些发现大多可以用受试者之前的学习经历来最好地解释。然而，我们认为，换位思考任务并不是对驯化理论或狗的心理理论的良好测试。我们所看到的问题是，换位思考任务的使用，再加上所有受试者之前的学习经历，极大地偏向于行为学习解释的结果。受之前训练影响较小的任务将为驯化和心理理论提供不那么混淆的测试。
