Dataset Information

Domestic dogs use contextual information and tone of voice when following a human pointing gesture.

ABSTRACT: Domestic dogs are skillful at using the human pointing gesture. In this study we investigated whether dogs take contextual information into account when following pointing gestures, specifically, whether they follow human pointing gestures more readily in the context in which food has been found previously. Also varied was the human's tone of voice as either imperative or informative. Dogs were more sustained in their searching behavior in the 'context' condition as opposed to the 'no context' condition, suggesting that they do not simply follow a pointing gesture blindly but use previously acquired contextual information to inform their interpretation of that pointing gesture. Dogs also showed more sustained searching behavior when there was pointing than when there was not, suggesting that they expect to find a referent when they see a human point. Finally, dogs searched more in high-pitched informative trials as opposed to the low-pitched imperative trials, whereas in the latter dogs seemed more inclined to respond by sitting. These findings suggest that a dog's response to a pointing gesture is flexible and depends on the context as well as the human's tone of voice.

SUBMITTER: Scheider L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3135590 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Domestic dogs use contextual information and tone of voice when following a human pointing gesture.

Scheider Linda L Grassmann Susanne S Kaminski Juliane J Tomasello Michael M

PloS one 20110713 7

Domestic dogs are skillful at using the human pointing gesture. In this study we investigated whether dogs take contextual information into account when following pointing gestures, specifically, whether they follow human pointing gestures more readily in the context in which food has been found previously. Also varied was the human's tone of voice as either imperative or informative. Dogs were more sustained in their searching behavior in the 'context' condition as opposed to the 'no context' c ...[more]

PMID: 21765904

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Project description:Pointing toward concrete objects is a well-known and efficient communicative strategy. Much less is known about the communicative effectiveness of abstract pointing where the pointing gestures are directed to "empty space." McNeill's (2003) observations suggest that abstract pointing can be used to establish referents in gesture space, without the referents being physically present. Recently, however, it has been shown that abstract pointing typically provides redundant information to the uttered speech thereby suggesting a very limited communicative value (So et al., 2009). In a first approach to tackle this issue we were interested to know whether perceivers are sensitive at all to this gesture cue or whether it is completely discarded as irrelevant add-on information. Sensitivity to for instance a gesture-speech mismatch would suggest a potential communicative function of abstract pointing. Therefore, we devised a mismatch paradigm in which participants watched a video where a female was interviewed on various topics. During her responses, she established two concepts in space using abstract pointing (e.g., pointing to the left when saying Donald, and pointing to the right when saying Mickey). In the last response to each topic, the pointing gesture accompanying a target word (e.g., Donald) was either consistent or inconsistent with the previously established location. Event related brain potentials showed an increased N400 and P600 when gesture and speech referred to different referents, indicating that inconsistent use of gesture space impairs language comprehension. Abstract pointing was found to influence comprehension even though gesture was not crucial to understanding the sentences or conducting the experimental task. These data suggest that a referent was retrieved via abstract pointing and that abstract pointing can potentially be used for referent indication in a discourse. We conclude that abstract pointing has a potential communicative function.

Dataset Information

Domestic dogs use contextual information and tone of voice when following a human pointing gesture.

Publications

Domestic dogs use contextual information and tone of voice when following a human pointing gesture.

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