Biol Lett. 2016 Jul;12(7). pii: 20160283. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0283.
Abstract
Domestication is an important factor driving changes in animal cognition
and behaviour. In particular, the capacity of dogs to communicate in a
referential and intentional way with humans is considered a key outcome
of how domestication as a companion animal shaped the canid brain.
However, the lack of comparison with other domestic animals makes
general conclusions about how domestication has affected these important
cognitive features difficult. We investigated human-directed behaviour
in an 'unsolvable problem' task in a domestic, but non-companion
species: goats. During the test, goats experienced a forward-facing or
an away-facing person. They gazed towards the forward-facing person
earlier and for longer and showed more gaze alternations and a lower
latency until the first gaze alternation when the person was
forward-facing. Our results provide strong evidence for
audience-dependent human-directed visual orienting behaviour in a
species that was domesticated primarily for production, and show
similarities with the referential and intentional communicative
behaviour exhibited by domestic companion animals such as dogs and horses. This indicates that domestication has a much broader impact on heterospecific communication than previously believed.
© 2016 The Author(s).
© 2016 The Author(s).
