Az emberi kommunikatív jegyek értelmezése csecsemők és kutyák esetében : összehasonlító vizsgálat

Translated title of the contribution: Interpreting human communicative signs in infants and dogs : a comparative study

Krisztina Kupán, József Topál, György Gergely

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Abstract (may include machine translation)

In the present series of experiments, we designed experimental situations in which we tried to test the predictions of the "natural pedagogy" hypothesis proposed by Gergely and Csibra for infants and dogs aged 14 and 18 months. The basic premise of the hypothesis is that humans have evolved a sensitivity to the so-called pedagogical situation during the evolution of cognitive abilities. "Pedagogical situations" are those specific communicative situations in which the knowledgeable teacher can use ostensive-communicative and referential cues to convey new and relevant information to the learner in a rapid and effective manner. Previous experiments have already shown that dogs, in addition to infants, are also sensitive to these behavioural traits, which they may have acquired through an evolutionary process (domestication) driven by adaptive constraints shared with humans. In our study, we used a two-way choice situation where the desired reward (toy object) can be obtained in two ways: either the container hiding the object is manipulated or a similar container located at a distance from it. The latter solution is both less efficient and "cognitively opaque", since manipulating the distant vessel causes the object to emerge from under another vessel in a way that is opaque to the observer. In the experiment, a human demonstrator demonstrates the latter "less efficient" action to the subject, who can then decide for himself how to try to obtain the object. In the study, we systematically varied the ostensive-communicative features accompanying the action presented by the demonstrator, as well as whether or not the demonstrator was present, while the observer could try to obtain the reward himself. The results suggest that, although communicative cues influence the type of acquisition mode preferred in both infants and dogs, quite different interpretative mechanisms can be hypothesized for the two species. Infants, with the exception of one group (18 months old, "no communicative/no present" situation), always preferred the less efficient and cognitively non-transparent method demonstrated by the presenter. In contrast, the dogs basically preferred the non-presented but more efficient method, except in the situation where the presenter used the communicative cues and then stayed inside during the choice. Thus, it seems that infants in the observational situation tend to reproduce the behaviour presented by the "teacher" regardless of its efficiency and "cognitive transparency", and this is particularly reinforced by the ostensive-communicative and referential cues accompanying the presented action, as expected from natural pedagogy. For dogs, however, the human behavioural manifestation acts as a kind of episodic "here and now" type of prompt to choose the less effective method, which is only sufficiently effective if the behaviour is presented in a communicative context and if the demonstrator is present as the instructor throughout the situation.


Translated title of the contributionInterpreting human communicative signs in infants and dogs : a comparative study
Original languageHungarian
Pages (from-to)217-235
Number of pages19
JournalPSZICHOLÓGIA (MTA PSZICHOLÓGIAI INTÉZET)
Volume29
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

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