Resumo

JAKOVCEVIC, Adriana  e  BENTOSELA, Mariana. Look what I show you: Referential communication between domestic dogs (canis familiaris) and humans?. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2012, vol.29, n.1, pp.5-22. ISSN 1668-7027.

Referential communication has been historically viewed as uniquely human because it is linked with the use of language. However, there is evidence indicating that animals can also communicate about external objects, by means of vocalizations or gestures. The use of gestures as pointing or gaze alternation involves the ability to direct the attention of an observer to a distal object or entity in the environment. This ability is shared with other species, especially those who live in captivity. For domestic dogs as for the species that live in captivity, humans provide the main resources for survival. For this reason a proper communication with them is essential. Visual social cues can be used to communicate emotional and mental states and so they allow us to predict other's behavior. In this context, both comprehension of the human gaze as well as the production of visual communicative signals by domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have special relevance. The evidence reviewed in the present study indicate that dogs can detect cues associated with human attentional states as head orientation, behaving differently when the person remains attentive or inattentive. Also, they are able to follow human head direction to find hidden food in an object choice task, but not gaze direction. Moreover, dogs can direct human attention toward an out-of-reach object, alternating their own gaze between the human face and the target. On that basis, as dogs can detect, follow and direct human attention, it would be possible to suggest that they can referentially communicate with people about distal objects in the environment; however these capacities were principally observed in foraging contexts. Nevertheless this does not imply that dogs necessarily comprehend others as intentional beings. There are several hypotheses to explain the origin of these abilities in dogs, some postulate that the intense process of domestication to which them were submitted, provide them a special sensitivity to communicate with humans. Differently, others stress the importance of ontogeny. Although the domestication process would be essential for understanding dogs' ability to communicate with humans, the experience with people that they have throughout their lives is also involved in the acquisition of these skills. The two-stage hypothesis states that in addition to the domestication process, the sensitivity of a canid to human social cues depends on two types of ontogeny experience. First, interaction with humans during a sensitive developmental period leading to the acceptance of humans as social companions. Second, learning that is not restricted to a particular phase of development to utilize the location and movement of parts of the human body to locate sought-after objects. This would lead to a human-food association by conditioning processes. As domestic dogs spend most of their lives in human families, they have many opportunities to learn to use these signals. This hypothesis recognizes that the domestication of dogs provided a longer socialization period than that of other canids facilitating the acceptance of humans as social partners. However, the animal's contact with people during its ontogenetic development is essential, if this contact does not occur at the right time, communicative skills will not properly develop. Possibly, during thousands of years dogs have been learning to gaze at the human face as the shortest way to satisfy their needs. This gazing exchange thus became a privileged channel of communication between the two species.

Palavras-chave : Learning; Attention; Social cognition; Referential communication; Intentionality; Gaze; Domestic dogs.

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