Simpson Joe, O'Hara Sean J
School of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Salford, Peel Building, Salford, M5 4WT, UK.
Anim Cogn. 2019 Mar;22(2):145-152. doi: 10.1007/s10071-018-1230-y. Epub 2018 Dec 22.
Gaze following is the ability to utilise information from another's gaze. It is most often seen in a social context or as a reflexive response to interesting external stimuli. Social species can potentially reveal utilisable knowledge about another's future intentions by attending to the target of their gaze. However, in even more fundamental situations, being sensitive to another's gaze can also be useful such as when it can facilitate greater foraging efficiency or lead to earlier predator detection. While gaze sensitivity has been shown to be prevalent in a number of social species, little is currently known about the potential for gaze following in asocial species. The current study investigated whether an asocial reptile, the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius), could reliably use the visual indicators of attention to follow the gaze of a conspecific around a barrier. We operated three trial conditions and found subjects (N = 6) responded significantly more to the conspecific demonstrator looking up at a laser stimulus projected onto an occluder during the experimental condition compared to either of two control conditions. The study's findings point toward growing evidence for gaze-following ability in reptiles, who are typically categorised as asocial. Furthermore, our findings support developing comparative social cognition research showing the origins of gaze following and other cognitive behaviours that may be more widely distributed across taxonomic groups than hitherto thought.
视线追随是一种利用他人视线信息的能力。它最常见于社交情境中，或者作为对有趣外部刺激的一种反射性反应。社会性物种通过关注他人视线的目标，有可能揭示关于他人未来意图的可用信息。然而，在更基本的情况下，对他人视线敏感也可能是有用的，比如当它能提高觅食效率或更早发现捕食者时。虽然视线敏感度已被证明在许多社会性物种中普遍存在，但目前对于非社会性物种的视线追随潜力知之甚少。当前的研究调查了一种非社会性爬行动物豹纹守宫（Eublepharis macularius）是否能够可靠地利用注意力的视觉指标，在障碍物周围追随同种个体的视线。我们设置了三种试验条件，发现与两种对照条件中的任何一种相比，在实验条件下，受试者（N = 6）对看向投射在遮挡物上的激光刺激的同种示范者的反应明显更多。该研究的结果表明，越来越多的证据支持通常被归类为非社会性的爬行动物具有视线追随能力。此外，我们的研究结果支持开展比较社会认知研究，该研究表明视线追随和其他认知行为的起源可能比迄今认为的更广泛地分布在分类群体中。
