Free-ranging dogs quickly learn to recognize a rewarding person

Srijaya Nandi, Mousumi Chakraborty, Aesha Lahiri, Hindolii Gope, Sujata Khan Bhaduri, Anindita Bhadra
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Abstract

Individual human recognition is important for species that live in close proximity to humans. Numerous studies on domesticated species and urban-adapted birds have highlighted this ability. One such species which is heavily reliant on humans is the free-ranging dog. Very little knowledge exists on the amount of time taken by free-ranging dogs to learn and remember individual humans. Due to their territorial nature, they have a high probability of encountering the same people multiple times on the streets. Being able to distinguish individual humans might be helpful in making decisions regarding people from whom to beg for food or social reward. We investigated if free-ranging dogs are capable of identifying the person rewarding them and the amount of time required for them to learn it. We conducted field trials on randomly selected adult free-ranging dogs in West Bengal, India. On Day 1, a choice test was conducted. The experimenter chosen did not provide reward while the other experimenter provided a piece of boiled chicken followed by petting. The person giving reward on Day 1 served as the correct choice on four subsequent days of training. Day 6 was the test day when none of the experimenters had a reward. We analyzed the choice made by the dogs, the time taken to approach during the choice tests, and the socialization index, which was calculated based on the intensity of affiliative behaviour shown towards the experimenters. The dogs made correct choices at a significantly higher rate on the fifth and sixth days, as compared to Day 2, suggesting learning. This is the first study aiming to understand the time taken for individual human recognition in free-ranging dogs and can serve as the scaffold for future studies to understand the dog-human relationship in open environments, like urban ecosystems.
自由奔跑的狗狗很快就能学会识别有奖励的人
对于生活在人类附近的物种来说,识别人类个体非常重要。大量关于驯化物种和适应城市的鸟类的研究都强调了这种能力。其中一个严重依赖人类的物种就是自由放养的狗。关于散养狗学习和记忆人类个体所需的时间,目前所知甚少。由于狗的领地特性,它们很有可能在街上多次遇到同样的人。能够分辨出单个的人类可能有助于决定向谁乞讨食物或社会奖励。我们研究了自由放养的狗是否能够识别奖励它们的人以及它们学会这一点所需的时间。我们在印度西孟加拉邦对随机挑选的成年自由放养狗进行了实地试验。第一天进行的是选择测试。被选中的实验者不提供奖励,而另一名实验者则提供一块煮熟的鸡肉,然后抚摸它。第 1 天给予奖励的人在随后四天的训练中都是正确的选择。我们分析了狗做出的选择、狗在选择测试中接近实验者所花费的时间以及狗的社会化指数,社会化指数是根据狗对实验者表现出的附属行为的强度计算得出的。与第 2 天相比,狗在第 5 天和第 6 天做出正确选择的比率明显较高,这表明狗在学习。这是第一项旨在了解自由放养的狗识别人类个体所需的时间的研究,可以为今后了解开放环境(如城市生态系统)中狗与人类关系的研究提供支架。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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