School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, 1010, New Zealand.
Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, GELIFES, University of Groningen, 9712 CP, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jan 24;10(1):1153. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-58210-4.
The presence of pictures of eyes reduces antisocial behaviour in humans. It has been suggested that this 'watching-eye' effect is the result of a uniquely human sensitivity to reputation-management cues. However, an alternative explanation is that humans are less likely to carry out risky behaviour in general when they feel like they are being watched. This risk-aversion hypothesis predicts that other animals should also show the watching-eye effect because many animals behave more cautiously when being observed. Dogs are an ideal species to test between these hypotheses because they behave in a risk-averse manner when being watched and attend specifically to eyes when assessing humans' attentional states. Here, we examined if dogs were slower to steal food in the presence of pictures of eyes compared to flowers. Dogs showed no difference in the latency to steal food between the two conditions. This finding shows that dogs are not sensitive to watching-eyes and is not consistent with a risk-aversion hypothesis for the watching-eye effect.
眼睛的图像减少了人类的反社会行为。有人认为，这种“监视眼”效应是人类对声誉管理线索的独特敏感性的结果。然而，另一种解释是，当人们感到被监视时，他们通常不太可能进行冒险行为。这种避险假说预测，其他动物也应该表现出“监视眼”效应，因为当被观察时，许多动物的行为会更加谨慎。狗是检验这些假说的理想物种，因为当被观察时，它们表现出避险行为，并且在评估人类的注意状态时特别注意眼睛。在这里，我们研究了狗在看到眼睛的图片和花朵的图片时，是否会更慢地偷食物。狗在两种情况下偷食物的潜伏期没有差异。这一发现表明，狗对“监视眼”并不敏感，这与“监视眼”效应的避险假说不一致。
