Evidence for the communicative function of human-directed gazing in 6- to 7-week-old dog puppies.

ABSTRACT: In human infants, the ability to show gaze alternations between an object of interest and another individual is considered fundamental to the development of complex social-cognitive abilities. Here we show that well-socialised dog puppies show gaze alternations in two contexts at an early age, 6-7 weeks. Thus, 69.4% of puppies in a novel object test and 45.59% of puppies during an unsolvable task alternated their gaze at least once between a person's face and the object. In both contexts, the frequency of gaze alternations was positively correlated with the duration of whimpering, supporting the communicative nature of puppies' gazing. Furthermore, the number of gaze alternations in the two contexts was correlated, indicating an underlying propensity for gazing at humans despite likely dif

SUBMITTER: Riemer S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11420273 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature