Comparative social cognition: From wolf and dog to humans

By Enikö Kubinyi, Zxofia Viranyi, Á. Miklósi. 2006

129 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Dogs’ special domestication processes, their natural socialization to humans, and the possibility of tracing evolutionary changes by comparing dogs’ behavior to that of wolves, make dogs altogether unique for studying the evolution of complex social behavior. Here the authors report some much needed comparisons between the behavior of dogs and wolves. The authors reveal some dog-specific behaviors, especially with regard to their interactions with humans, by comparing dogs and wolves hand-reared identically. This approach ensures that behavioral differences between dogs and wolves will be due to species-specific (genetic) differences, and not to differences in experience. The results indicate that social attraction, presumably synchronizing behavior, and communicative abilities of dogs changed markedly during the process of domestication. The authors suggest that this model of dog behavior has the potential to provide new insights into the evolution of human socio-cognitive behavior.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Genetics, Pharmacy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ab035301cb5991790090dc884c89e1f8a5ca8244

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. A. Dóka
2. J. Topál
3. Á. Miklósi
4. P. Pongrácz
5. Enikö Kubinyi
6. C. Wynne

In Genetics

1. C. Wynne
2. Á. Miklósi
3. M. Udell
4. Enikö Kubinyi
5. J. Topál
6. P. Pongrácz
7. Márta Gácsi
8. N. Dorey

In Pharmacy

1. C. Wynne
2. M. Udell
3. Á. Miklósi
4. Enikö Kubinyi
5. J. Topál
6. Márta Gácsi
7. P. Pongrácz
8. N. Dorey

Citations in the corpus

• The world from a dog's point of view (2013, unknown): “The strong tendency to look toward humans frequently in communicative contexts has been proposed to be a behavioral feature that distinguishes dogs from wolves (Kubinyi et al., 2007).”
• Wolves outperform dogs in following human social cues (2008, background): “hypothesis, domestication would be a requirement for untrained sensitivity to human cues (Hare et al. 2002; Miklósi et al. 2003; Kubinyi et al. 2007; Virányi et al. 2008).”
• The dog as a model for understanding human social behavior (2009, background): “The wolf provides a very useful comparative background, because we assume that the convergent skills of extant dogs are derived from homologous traits of the wolf (Kubinyi et al., 2007).”