Chapter 13 – Wagging to the Right or to the Left: Lateralisation and What It Tells of the Dog’s Social Brain
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Abstract
This chapter shows how lateralisation of brain functions influences dog behaviour during several activities, including tail wagging and paw preference.
Implications of these behavioural asymmetries on the different roles played by the two sides of a dog’s brain are put forward, with examples from the main sensory domains (namely, olfaction, visual, and auditory); similarities with behavioural tests performed in other animal models (e.g., chicks, fish, non-human primates) are discussed.
Overall, data confirms the presence of a complementary specialisation of brain hemispheres in canine species, with a left-hemispheric advantage for routine behaviours and for the perception of species-specific vocalisations, and with a right hemisphere specialisation in the analysis of arousal stimuli and novelty.
Finally, the relationships between emotion, cognition, and lateralisation are discussed speculatively in the hope of finding new ways of measuring the affective states of dogs with direct implications for animal welfare and successful social communication.
Keywords
- lateralisation;
- behaviour;
- emotions;
- social cognition;
- tail wagging;
- paw preference
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