Inside Of A Dog Part 8

Dogs, social animals like us, and also more or less relieved of survival pressures, surely have some interesting mechanisms with which to attend to the world. By virtue of their different sensory abilities, though, they are able to attend to things we never notice, such as how our odor changes through the day. Likewise, we focus carefully on things that dogs do not even detect, such as subtle differences in language use.

But what distinguishes dogs from other mammals, even other domesticated mammals, is the way that their attention overlaps with ours. Like us, they pay attention to humans: humans: to our location, subtle movements, moods, and, most avidly, to our faces. A popular conception of animals is that if they look at us at all, it is from fear or appet.i.te, monitoring us as possible predator or prey. Not true: the dog looks very particularly at humans. to our location, subtle movements, moods, and, most avidly, to our faces. A popular conception of animals is that if they look at us at all, it is from fear or appet.i.te, monitoring us as possible predator or prey. Not true: the dog looks very particularly at humans.

Just how particularly is the subject of a mad rush of contemporary research into dog cognitive abilities. This research uses as markers the landmarks in the development of human infants into human adults, which is well doc.u.mented, and which result is obvious: by adulthood, we all understand what it means to pay attention. What the dog research is revealing is that dogs have some of the same abilities that we do.

THE EYES OF A CHILD.

For dogs and humans both, it all begins with a few innate behavioral tendencies. Having and understanding attention is not automatic, but it develops naturally from these instincts. Human infants, like most animals, have a basic orienting reflex: move, as best or as much as you can, toward a source of warmth, food, or safety. Newborns turn their faces toward warmth and suck: the rooting reflex. At that age, infants can do little more. Ducklings, more precocious, relentlessly chase after the first adult creature they see.* In both ducklings and humanlings, this reflex relies on an early perceptual ability: having at least noticed noticed the presence of others. It is an ability that helps us, in our first few years, learn about the important fact of others' attention. the presence of others. It is an ability that helps us, in our first few years, learn about the important fact of others' attention.

For humans, there is a reliable course of development through infancy of certain behaviors a.s.sociated with this growing understanding of other people. It is all about learning to attend to the right-human-things in the world, and beginning to understand that others are attending, too. And it begins as soon as they open their eyes. Newborn babies can see, although not much. They are incredibly nearsighted: peering, cooing faces brought just inches from their own may be clear, but that is about the extent of clarity of the world. One of the first things infants notice is any faces nearby. In fact our brains have specialized neurons that fire when we see a face. Infants can detect, and prefer to look at, a face or something facelike-even three points forming a V-rather than other visual scenes. From early in their lives, infants stare longer* at that which interests them, the mother's face being among the first items of interest. Soon infants also learn to distinguish a face looking toward them from one looking away. This is a simple skill, but not a trivial one: out of the visual cacophony of the world, they must start noticing that there are objects, that some of those objects are alive, that some of those alive objects are of particular interest, and that some of those interesting live objects attend to you when they face you.

Once that is established, and their own visual acuity improves, infants focus on the details in that face. They delight at peekaboo: a game playing simply with the importance of eyes. As psychologists have shown by sticking out their tongues and making faces at infants, very young infants can imitate simple expressions. Of course, these expressions don't have the meaning that they will later (we must a.s.sume that the infant is not actually sticking his tongue out spitefully at the psychologist, though one might wish it so). Infants are simply learning to use their facial muscles. By three months, they've got it, and they start reacting to others by making faces and smiling socially. They move their heads to look at other faces nearby. By nine months old they are tracking other people's gaze and seeing where it lands. They might use that gaze to find some object that they have asked about, or that has been hidden from them. Soon they extend the line of gaze into a point with finger, fist, or arm to request an object, and by their first birthday, to show or share.

These behaviors reflect the infant's burgeoning understanding that other people have attention, attention that can light on objects of interest: a bottle, a toy, or them. Between twelve and eighteen months, they begin to engage in bouts of joint joint attention attention with others: locking eyes, then looking to another object, then back to eye contact. This marks a breakthrough: to achieve full "jointness" the infant must on some level understand that not only are they both looking together, they are with others: locking eyes, then looking to another object, then back to eye contact. This marks a breakthrough: to achieve full "jointness" the infant must on some level understand that not only are they both looking together, they are attending attending together. They are understanding that there is some invisible but real connection between other people and the objects that are in their line of vision. Once they do this, all h.e.l.l can break loose. Infants can start manipulating others' attention simply by gazing someplace. They check where other people are looking and pointing, and they begin to notice if adults are looking at them while they are doing activities they want to share (or conceal). They will give an antic.i.p.atory glance at an adult before pointing or showing themselves. They work very hard to get attention looking at them. And they may begin avoiding attention: going out of a room at key moments, or concealing objects from an adult's view. (This prepares them well for being difficult adolescents.) together. They are understanding that there is some invisible but real connection between other people and the objects that are in their line of vision. Once they do this, all h.e.l.l can break loose. Infants can start manipulating others' attention simply by gazing someplace. They check where other people are looking and pointing, and they begin to notice if adults are looking at them while they are doing activities they want to share (or conceal). They will give an antic.i.p.atory glance at an adult before pointing or showing themselves. They work very hard to get attention looking at them. And they may begin avoiding attention: going out of a room at key moments, or concealing objects from an adult's view. (This prepares them well for being difficult adolescents.)

We all become characteristically human by this same developmental route. Within a few years an infant goes from aimlessly looking out of new eyes, to looking meaningfully, to gazing at others, to following the gaze of others. They happily hold eye contact. Before long they are using gaze to get information, to manipulate the gaze of others-by distraction, gaze avoidance, or pointing-and to get attention. At some point, they come to a realization about the fact of the mind behind someone else's gaze.

THE ATTENTION OF ANIMALS.

She comes within an inch of me and starts panting at me, eyes wide and unblinking, to tell me that she needs something.

Step-by-step, cognition researchers have been tracing this developmental course with a new subject: non-human animals. How much of the infant's trajectory is followed by animals? After they open their eyes, do they look with intention? Do they notice others' eyes? Do they understand the importance of attention?

This is one facet of the study of animal cognition, which asks what an animal subject understands about the "mental states" of others. Most of the experimental tests run with animals are of the kind we feel sure we humans excel at: tests of physical and social cognition. Captive animals from sea slugs to pigeons to prairie dogs to chimpanzees have been set into mazes; presented with counting, categorizing, and naming tasks; asked to discriminate, learn, and remember series of numbers and pictures. Tasks are devised to see if they recognize, imitate, or deceive others-or even recognize themselves. And in some tests, the question is even more characteristically human: of the kind of social thinking going on when animals interact-with members of their own species, and with those of other species. When a caged chimpanzee looks at a human attendant, is he considering anything about the attendant? Does he wonder how to get her to open the door (does he wonder anything at all?), or is he simply waiting to see what this colorful, animate object nearby does that might be relevant or interesting? Does a cat consider that mouse as an agent, as an animal with a life-or does he see the mouse as a moving meal that must be stopped and dismantled?

As we've touched on already, the subjective experience of animals is notoriously difficult to get at scientifically. No animal can be asked to relate its experience in voice or on paper,* so behavior must be our guide. Behavior has its pitfalls, too, since we cannot be positive that any two individuals' similar behavior indicates similar psychological states. For instance, I smile when I am happy ... but I may also smile out of concern, uncertainty, or surprise. You smile back at me: it too might be happiness-or ironic detachment. To say nothing of the near impossibility of determining whether your "happiness" feels like mine does.

Still, even without having constant verification of others' mental states, behavior is a good enough guide to allow us to predict an animal's future behavior well enough to interact peacefully and productively. Thus we study what animals do-in particular, what they do that is like what humans do. Since using and following attention is so important in human social interaction, animal cognition researchers look for behaviors that indicate that an animal is using attention.

Dogs have recently trotted gamely into experimental labs, controlled outdoor facilities, and onto data sheets meant to gather information about their abilities at using attention. The dogs are put in controlled settings, usually with one or more experimenters present, and a hidden, desirable object: a toy or a food treat. By varying the cues that they use to inform the dogs about the location of the treat, the experimenters aim to determine which ones are meaningful to the dogs.

The question for researchers is just how far along these stages of the child's development of attention dogs go. Attention begins with gaze, and gaze requires visual capacity. We have already established what dogs can see; we know that they look. Do they understand attention?

Mutual gaze

A gaze is more than it seems: by gazing at someone, one very nearly acts acts upon him. As my students discover in their field experiments, eye contact comes close to feeling like actual tactile contact. There are undiscussed and yet widely shared rules governing eye contact with others-violation of which may be seen as an act of aggression or of intimacy. We may stare down someone in an attempt to subdue them, or, alternatively, use a long, steady gaze to indicate a more l.u.s.tful interest. upon him. As my students discover in their field experiments, eye contact comes close to feeling like actual tactile contact. There are undiscussed and yet widely shared rules governing eye contact with others-violation of which may be seen as an act of aggression or of intimacy. We may stare down someone in an attempt to subdue them, or, alternatively, use a long, steady gaze to indicate a more l.u.s.tful interest.

With a little variation, this could as easily describe how many non-human animals use eye contact. Between apes, eye contact is steeped with importance: it can be used as an aggressive action, and will be avoided by a submissive member of a troop. To stare at a dominant animal is to invite yourself to be attacked. Not only do chimpanzees avoid staring, they avoid being stared at. Subordinate chimps carry themselves despondently, looking down at the ground or their own feet and only furtively glancing around them. In wolves, too, a direct stare may be taken as a threat. So the "aggressive" element of eye contact is the same as with humans. The variation is this: all non-human animals with any meaningful visual capacities will turn their eyes to something of interest-but if the thing-of-interest is a member of their species, the social pressure of gazing usually deflects the gaze of interest.

Thus we can expect that dogs might act somewhat differently than we do with regards to mutual gaze. As dogs evolved from a species in which a stare is most often a threat, we might do best to consider their avoidance of eye contact less an inability than a result of their evolutionary history. But wait! Dogs do look at our faces. They look at each other in the center of the face: at eye level. Most dog owners will report that their dogs gaze at them directly in the eyes.*

So something changed with dogs. While the threat of aggression prevents mutual gaze among wolves, chimpanzees, and monkeys, for dogs the information to be gained by looking us in the eyes is worth enduring any residual, ancient fear that a stare might cause an attack. That humans respond well to a dog gazing at them is a happy circ.u.mstance-and our bond with them is thereby strengthened.

To be sure, it may be less "eye contact" than "face contact."* Because of the superficial anatomy of the dog eye-the lack of distinct iris and whites of the eye-specific eye direction can often only be confirmed from closer range than scientists' video cameras have gotten. Generations of dog breeders have tended to prefer the trait of dark eyes in their charges. Dogs with light-colored irises are often thought to look volatile or sneaky-ironically because we can see clearly when they avoid eye contact. By breeding out the light irises we do not eliminate s.h.i.+ftiness, just our awareness awareness of the fact that dogs s.h.i.+ft their gaze. Darting eyes become less conspicuous. We sleep better at night with a calm-featured dog at the foot of our bed than with a nervous eye-darter. For all intents and purposes, though, we can say that a dog and human "mutually gaze" when we turn our faces toward each other. of the fact that dogs s.h.i.+ft their gaze. Darting eyes become less conspicuous. We sleep better at night with a calm-featured dog at the foot of our bed than with a nervous eye-darter. For all intents and purposes, though, we can say that a dog and human "mutually gaze" when we turn our faces toward each other.

The primal pull of gaze still affects dogs' behavior. If you stare unblinkingly at your dog, he may look away. Approached by a dog who appears overly aggressive or overly interested, a dog can diffuse some of that excitement by glancing to the side. Your chastis.e.m.e.nt or accusation of your dog accompanied by a glare may also provoke a demure averral of the dog's gaze. Given the easily recognized s.h.i.+fty look of the guilty man confronted by his accuser, it is no wonder that we attribute the same to the gaze-avoiding dog. The refusal to look us in the eyes contributes to a look of guilt-especially when we are already certain they have done something to inspire it. Whether they are themselves feeling guilt or atavism is not obvious.

But the fact that dogs will look us in the eyes allows us to treat them as a little more human. We apply to them the implicit rules that accompany human conversations. It is not uncommon to see a dog owner pause from scolding a "bad dog" to physically turn the dog's head back toward the owner's face. We want dogs to look at us when we are talking to them-just as we use gaze in human conversation, in which listeners look at the face of the speaker more than the reverse. (Notably, we do not stare at each other non-stop in conversation, and might feel unsettled if someone did.) There is more direct eye contact among humans speaking intimately or honestly, and we tend to extend that conversational dynamic to our dogs. We call their names before speaking to them, treating them like willing, if taciturn, interlocutors.

Gaze following

It doesn't happen at once, but not long after bringing a dog or puppy to your home for the first time you might notice something: nothing in the house is safe. Dogs train humans to become suddenly tidy: putting away shoes and socks almost as soon as they are removed; taking out the trash well before it heaps high; leaving nothing on the floor that could fit into the gaping mouth of a teething, excited, unrestrained pup. A temporary peace may ensue. After all, you can put things behind closed doors, into shut cabinets, and onto high shelves. Dogs look, baffled, in the area from which the (shoe, takeout container, hat) has mysteriously gone missing. But soon you will notice that the dog has learned something new: you you are the source of the mysterious relocations-and you have a tendency to tip your hand. are the source of the mysterious relocations-and you have a tendency to tip your hand.

How? You look. When we pick up the sock and set it down, we're not just attached to it by a hand; the action is accompanied by a gaze. We look where we are going. Later, we may look again at that safe sock spot when discussing the dog's earlier thievery. Again our gaze reveals the location of the sock: the gaze is itself information. We have already met this ability to use the direction of another's gaze, so-called gaze following, gaze following, which infants do before reaching one year old. Dogs do it even sooner. which infants do before reaching one year old. Dogs do it even sooner.

A gaze that intends to share information is simply a point done without hands. Following a point is a slightly simpler ability. Certainly dogs see a lot of pointing and gesturing as they observe human members of their families. This may be the source of their gaze-following ability, or it may simply bring out an innate ability to glean any information possible from our behavior. Researchers have tested the limits of their ability, natural or learned, in various experiments that put dogs in a context where they can get information from a person's pointing gesture. For instance, a biscuit or other desired food might be hidden under one of two inverted buckets while the dog subject is out of the room. When all odor cues are masked, the dog has to make a decision which bucket to choose. If he chooses correctly, he is rewarded with the food; if not, he is rewarded with nothing. A person who knows which bucket to choose is standing nearby.

Chimpanzees have been given variations of this task in captive research settings. Surprisingly, though they seem to follow points, they don't always do well at following gaze alone.

Dogs perform admirably. They follow points, points that reach across the pointer's body, points from behind the body, and are even better if the point includes a finger further signifying the baited bucket.* They haven't simply learned the importance of an outstretched arm. Pointing with elbows, knees, and legs also serves as information. Given even a momentary point-a glance of a point-the information is theirs. They can follow the pointed cue given by a life-sized video projection of their owner. Though they have no arms with which to point themselves, they outperform the chimps who have been tested. Best, dogs can use simply the person's head direction-her gaze-to get information. You may be able to hide that sock from your sock-coveting chimpanzee, but your dog will spot it.

Where dogs' use of attention really gets interesting is in less overt cases. Not just when we point and they look, but when they have to decide how to inform us that they need to go outside-or want a ball tossed to them. Or they need to tell us some very important news about where a tasty treat fell out of their reach while we were out of the room. Play with humans is a rich context for the possible appearance of some of these abilities; experimental paradigms also manipulate the information that can be gleaned from others' attention. All signs indicate that dogs seem to understand how to get attention, how to make requests of us using attention, and what kind of in inattention allows them to get away with bad behavior.

Attention-getting

The first of these abilities, when seen in children, is called "attention-getting." Informally, you may know it as anything that your dog does to interfere with what you are currently trying to do. More formally, these are behaviors that are sufficient to change the focus of someone else's attention, by stepping into his visual field, making a discernible noise, or making contact. Suddenly jumping on you is a familiar dog attention-getting behavior, if not one that is well loved by the jumped-upon. Barking is another. Their attention-getting means aren't restricted to the quotidian, though. Less recognized means include b.u.mping, pawing, or simply orienting oneself right up in front of someone else: what I have called an in-your-face in-your-face in my data of dog play behaviors. Guide dogs use "sonorous mouth licking"-audible slurps-to get the attention of their visually impaired charges when needed. The excitement of play sometimes leads them to come up with novel techniques, too. My favorite sessions to observe are those in which an eager but frustrated dog mirrors the behavior of the object of his unrequited play interest: approaching and drinking from the bowl from which the first dog is drinking-and using it as a means toward licking his face; or grabbing a stick of his own when another dog finds a good stick to be sufficient company. in my data of dog play behaviors. Guide dogs use "sonorous mouth licking"-audible slurps-to get the attention of their visually impaired charges when needed. The excitement of play sometimes leads them to come up with novel techniques, too. My favorite sessions to observe are those in which an eager but frustrated dog mirrors the behavior of the object of his unrequited play interest: approaching and drinking from the bowl from which the first dog is drinking-and using it as a means toward licking his face; or grabbing a stick of his own when another dog finds a good stick to be sufficient company.

Dogs use attention-getters regularly with us, and are often rewarded with our attention. But unless they show some subtlety in application of these behaviors, their use does not prove their full understanding of our attention. It may be that they are simply throwing all the tools they have at the problem of needing you to look at them. A child hollers, you come racing to his side: an attention-getter is born. Observations of dogs playing with humans show just how crude or subtle their use of these behaviors is. There are dogs who will stand barking continuously over a retrieved tennis ball, while their owners socialize with members of their own species. While a good attention-getter, a bark is not well applied if it continues to be used after it has failed to get attention. On the other hand, there is also evidence of very subtle visual attention-getters by dogs in reaction to the divided attention of their owners. By changing posture, as from a seated posture to standing, or from standing to approaching, dogs are able to reengage the owner enough to toss a ball or lunge playfully.

You are regularly a witness to the flexibility dogs show in attention-getting. If your dog did not rouse you from your armchair and novel by simply approaching you, he may have wandered off only to return carrying a shoe or another verboten item. Probably this causes you to chastise him gently and return to your book. More serious tactics are needed, he sees. Next may come whining, or a tentative woof; a tactile intervention-a slight push with a wet nose, nuzzling, or jumping; even a loud drop to the floor at your feet with a sigh. They are trying their best with you here.

Showing

So far, the dogs have kept pace with the developing child: gazing, following a point, following gaze, and using attention-getters. Do they also point, as best they can, with their bodies? Do they point with their heads to show show you something? you something?

Here again, experimenters set up a situation that they presumed would prompt the behavior, if the ability exists. The scenario is the gaze-following task, inverted. Instead of being the naive ones, in these cases the dogs are informed but impotent: they alone witness an experimenter hiding a treat, d.a.m.nably out of their reach. Their owners then wander into the room, and experimenters train their cameras on the dogs: Do they see the owners as tools which can help them? If so, do they communicate the location of the treat?

In these cases, it seems the only obtuse animals in the room are the humans, who may not see the dog's behavior as potentially showing them anything. That behavior consists of a lot of attention-getters (such as barking), followed, critically, by looking back and forth between the owner and the location of the treat. In other words, pointing with that gaze: showing.

This is visible daily in non-experimental settings. Ball dogs crazy about retrieving generally deliver their s...o...b..red spheres to the front side-the face-of the ball t.o.s.s.e.r, not to her back. And, if the ball is mistakenly dropped at the unresponding backside of the owner, the dog has an a.r.s.enal of attention-getters to employ, followed by relentless gaze alterations-looking at the face of the human holding the ball, and looking back at the ball in quick succession. The restless, attention-starved dog is never satisfied dropping found socks at your back; they are left within your sight, if not right on your lap.

Manipulating attention

Finally, dogs use the attention of others as information, both to get something they want and, more remarkably, to determine when they can get away with something.

Research has determined this by asking if dogs choose intelligently when given a choice about whom to request food from. If every person is an equally good source of food, one would expect that dogs would approach all persons with that same beguiling expression-half entreaty, half expectation. There are dogs who do so, of course,* and those who reserve their begging for butchers, or owners who stuff their pockets with liver treats. But most dogs make a distinction that is important to us when we desire something: between possible and impossible collaborators. We make requests appropriate to the state of knowledge and capacity of our audience. You do not ask the baker to explain string theory and the physicist for a loaf of seven-grain, sliced.

In experimental settings mining the same four elements of dog, experimenter, food, and knowledge, dogs seem to distinguish between humans who might be helpful to them and humans who will likely not. When a person with a sandwich is either blindfolded or facing away, dogs suppress the urge to stay as close as possible to the sandwich. Instead, if there is a non-blindfolded person nearby, they go beg to him instead. Let this be a lesson that begging at the table is probably encouraged by your eye contact toward the dog-even just long enough to tell him no begging! no begging! Alternately, set up one person as the responsive, looking beggee and all the dog's attention will go to him. (Children are good for this role.) Alternately, set up one person as the responsive, looking beggee and all the dog's attention will go to him. (Children are good for this role.)