Do dogs mind the dots? Investigating domestic dogs' ( Canis familiaris ) preferential looking at human‐shaped point‐light figures

"Pet effect" patterns: Dynamics of animal presence and caregiver affect across (tele)work and non-work contexts

Human-animal interactions (HAI) may relate to animal caregivers' affect, also referred to as the "pet effect". However, studies have not explored these associations in work contexts or evaluated longitudinal patterns of HAI with other activities across work and non-work contexts, and their associations with caregiver emotions. We therefore assess momentary associations between HAI during (tele)work and non-work time and positive and negative caregiver affect (PA/NA), identify person-level patterns of longitudinal HAI state trajectories, and analyze cross-level moderating effects of these patterns on momentary associations between HAI and PA/NA. First, we evaluated associations between momentary HAI and caregiver PA/NA including the moderating role of momentary work state (teleworking vs. not working). Second, using a data-driven approach, we applied sequence analysis to determine heterogeneity in state trajectories amongst caregivers using working activity and animal presence in five possible states (working at work/teleworking with animal/teleworking without animal/not working with animal/not working without animal), which we labelled as animal-work constellations. Similar trajectories of animal-work constellations across caregivers were grouped into clusters with recognizable patterns. Third, we assessed whether such patterns moderated momentary associations between HAI and caregiver PA/NA. Caregivers (Npersons =  324) completed ecological momentary survey data during five days with 10 prompts per day (Nobservations =  16,127) between 2017 and 2024. Results showed that momentary associations between HAI and affect were moderated by momentary work state and person-level animal-work constellation pattern, contextualizing the "pet effect". Our results highlight the importance of microlevel investigations of animal-work constellations and validates the novel use of sequence analysis to explore the role of context and time.

Perception of animate motion in dogs

Various motion cues can lead to the perception of animacy, including (1) simple motion characteristics such as starting to move from rest, (2) motion patterns of interactions like chasing, or (3) the motion of point-lights representing the joints of a moving biological agent. Due to the relevance of dogs in comparative research and considering the large variability within the species, studying animacy perception in dogs can provide unique information about how selection for specific traits and individual-level (social) differences may shape social perception. Despite these advantages, only a few studies have investigated the phenomenon in dogs. In this mini-review, we discuss the current findings about how specific motion dynamics associated with animacy drive dogs' visual attention.

Visual continuum in non-human animals: serial dependence revealed in dogs

Serial dependence is a recently described phenomenon by which the perceptual evaluation of a stimulus is biased by a previously attended one. By integrating stimuli over time, serial dependence is believed to ensure a stable conscious experience. Despite increasing studies in humans, it is unknown if the process occurs also in other species. Here, we assessed whether serial dependence occurs in dogs. To this aim, dogs were trained on a quantity discrimination task before being presented with a discrimination where one of the discriminanda was preceded by a task-irrelevant stimulus. If dogs are susceptible to serial dependence, the task-irrelevant stimulus was hypothesized to influence the perception of the subsequently presented quantity. Our results revealed that dogs perceived the currently presented quantity to be closer to the one presented briefly before, in accordance with serial dependence. The direction and strength of the effect were comparable to those observed in humans. Data regarding dogs' attention during the task suggest that dogs used two different quantity estimation mechanisms, an indication of a higher cognitive mechanism involved in the process. The present results are the first empirical evidence that serial dependence extends beyond humans, suggesting that the mechanism is shared by phylogenetically distant mammals.

Visual perception of emotion cues in dogs: a critical review of methodologies

Comparative studies of human-dog cognition have grown exponentially since the 2000's, but the focus on how dogs look at us (as well as other dogs) as social partners is a more recent phenomenon despite its importance to human-dog interactions. Here, we briefly summarise the current state of research in visual perception of emotion cues in dogs and why this area is important; we then critically review its most commonly used methods, by discussing conceptual and methodological challenges and associated limitations in depth; finally, we suggest some possible solutions and recommend best practice for future research. Typically, most studies in this field have concentrated on facial emotional cues, with full body information rarely considered. There are many challenges in the way studies are conceptually designed (e.g., use of non-naturalistic stimuli) and the way researchers incorporate biases (e.g., anthropomorphism) into experimental designs, which may lead to problematic conclusions. However, technological and scientific advances offer the opportunity to gather much more valid, objective, and systematic data in this rapidly expanding field of study. Solving conceptual and methodological challenges in the field of emotion perception research in dogs will not only be beneficial in improving research in dog-human interactions, but also within the comparative psychology area, in which dogs are an important model species to study evolutionary processes.

Dogs' ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience

Visually tracking a moving object, even if it becomes temporarily invisible, is an important skill for animals living in complex environments. However, this ability has not been widely explored in dogs. To address this gap of knowledge and understand how experience contributes to such ability, we conducted two experiments using a violation of expectation paradigm. Dogs were shown an animation of a ball moving horizontally across a screen, passing behind an occluder, and reappearing with a timing that was faster, slower or congruent with its initial speed. In the first experiment, dogs (N = 15) were exposed to the incongruent conditions without prior experience; while in the second experiment, dogs (N = 37) were preliminarily exposed to the congruent stimulus. Dogs of the first experiment did not exhibit a surprise effect, as measured by latency to look away from the expected stimulus presentation area, in response to the incongruent conditions, suggesting they had not formed an expectation about the timing of reappearance. However, their latency to orient towards the reappearing ball depended on the condition, suggesting they were able, to some extent, to visually keep track of the stimulus' trajectory. Dogs of the second experiment were surprised when the ball stayed behind the occluder longer than expected, but showed no difference in latency to orient across conditions. This suggests they had overcome the visual tracking mechanism and had formed expectations about the timing of reappearance. In conclusion, dogs seem to use a low-level mechanism to keep visual track of a temporarily disappearing moving object, but experience is required to make expectation about its trajectory.

Dogs fail to recognize a human pointing gesture in two-dimensional depictions of motion cues

Few studies have investigated biological motion perception in dogs and it remains unknown whether dogs recognise the biological identity of two-dimensional animations of human motion cues. To test this, we assessed the dogs' (N = 32) responses to point-light displays of a human performing a pointing gesture towards one of two pots. At the start of the experiment the demonstrator was a real-life person, but over the course of the test dogs were presented with two-dimensional figurative representations of pointing gestures in which visual information was progressively removed until only the isolated motion cues remained. Dogs' accuracy was above chance level only with real-life and black-and-white videos, but not with the silhouette or the point-light figure. Dogs' accuracy during these conditions was significantly lower than in the real-life condition. This result could not be explained by trial order since dogs' performance was still not higher than chance when only the point-light figure condition was presented after the initial demonstration. The results imply that dogs are unable to recognise humans in two-dimensional depictions of human motion cues only. In spite of extensive exposure to human movement, dogs need more perceptual cues to detect equivalence between human two-dimensional animations and the represented living entity.