Ontogeny of dogs’ sensitivity to the human’s attentional state: Do the eyes have it?

Dogs have been shown to differentiate attentional states in humans in competitive situations over food or when they are told to obey a command. Here we test to what extent dogs' attention to a human's attentional state might be learnt ontogenetically. We exposed Labrador puppies (N=90) of different ages (6 weeks, N=18; 8 weeks, N=19; 10 weeks, N=18; 12 weeks, N=17; 16 weeks, N=18 and adult Labradors (between 1 and 11 years old), N=25) to a social interaction with a human experimenter during which the attention of the experimenter systematically varies (she either has her eyes open, eyes closed, is facing away or has her back turned). Dogs were free to roam throughout the whole trial, no food or communicative directives were given, and we recorded and analysed dogs unrestricted behavioural responses throughout the trials. Dogs of all ages oriented and reached towards the humans face more when the face was visible than when it was not visible. Interestingly, varying the status of the eyes (eyes open versus eye closed) did not seem to affect the dog’s response. Here we discuss that this might be because of the more neutral setting of the current study, which changes dogs’ perception of the relevance of human attention.