Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy.
Anim Cogn. 2021 Sep;24(5):969-979. doi: 10.1007/s10071-021-01470-y. Epub 2021 Mar 19.
Several aspects of dogs' visual and social cognition have been explored using bi-dimensional representations of other dogs. It remains unclear, however, if dogs do recognize as dogs the stimuli depicted in such representations, especially with regard to videos. To test this, 32 pet dogs took part in a cross-modal violation of expectancy experiment, during which dogs were shown videos of either a dog and that of an unfamiliar animal, paired with either the sound of a dog barking or of an unfamiliar vocalization. While stimuli were being presented, dogs paid higher attention to the exit region of the presentation area, when the visual stimulus represented a dog than when it represented an unfamiliar species. After exposure to the stimuli, dogs' attention to different parts of the presentation area depended on the specific combination of visual and auditory stimuli. Of relevance, dogs paid less attention to the central part of the presentation area and more to the entrance area after being exposed to the barking and dog video pair, than when either was paired with an unfamiliar stimulus. These results indicate dogs were surprised by the latter pairings, not by the former, and were interested in where the barking and dog pair came from, implying recognition of the two stimuli as belonging to a conspecific. The study represents the first demonstration that dogs can recognize other conspecifics in videos.
已经使用其他狗的二维表示形式探索了狗的视觉和社会认知的几个方面。然而，目前尚不清楚狗是否能识别出这些表示形式中描绘的其他狗，特别是对于视频而言。为了测试这一点，32 只宠物狗参加了跨模态违反期望实验，在此期间，狗观看了狗和陌生动物的视频，同时伴随着狗叫声或陌生的叫声。在呈现刺激物时，当视觉刺激物代表狗而不是陌生物种时，狗会更加关注呈现区域的出口区域。在暴露于刺激物后，狗对呈现区域不同部分的注意力取决于视觉和听觉刺激的特定组合。值得注意的是，与陌生刺激物配对相比，在暴露于吠叫和狗视频配对后，狗对呈现区域中心部分的注意力减少，对入口区域的注意力增加。这些结果表明，狗对后一种配对感到惊讶，而不是对前一种配对感到惊讶，并且对吠叫和狗配对的来源感兴趣，这意味着它们将这两个刺激物识别为同种动物。该研究首次证明了狗可以在视频中识别其他同种动物。
