title: Comparison of dogs and humans in visual scanning of social interaction.
abstract: Previous studies have demonstrated similarities in gazing behaviour of dogs and humans, but comparisons under similar conditions are rare, and little is known about dogs' visual attention to social scenes. Here, we recorded the eye gaze of dogs while they viewed images containing two humans or dogs either interacting socially or facing away: the results were compared with equivalent data measured from humans. Furthermore, we compared the gazing behaviour of two dog and two human populations with different social experiences: family and kennel dogs; dog experts and non-experts. Dogs' gazing behaviour was similar to humans: both species gazed longer at the actors in social interaction than in non-social images. However, humans gazed longer at the actors in dog than human social interaction images, whereas dogs gazed longer at the actors in human than dog social interaction images. Both species also made more saccades between actors in images representing non-conspecifics, which could indicate that processing social interaction of non-conspecifics may be more demanding. Dog experts and non-experts viewed the images very similarly. Kennel dogs viewed images less than family dogs, but otherwise their gazing behaviour did not differ, indicating that the basic processing of social stimuli remains similar regardless of social experiences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland ; Cognitive Science, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences , University of Helsinki , Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Heini
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Törnqvist
authors.affiliation: Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Sanni
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Somppi
authors.affiliation: Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Aija
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koskela
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Science, Faculty of Behavioural Sciences , University of Helsinki , Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Christina M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Krause
authors.affiliation: Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Outi
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Vainio
authors.affiliation: Department of Equine and Small Animal Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Helsinki, Finland ; Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering , Aalto University , Espoo, Finland.
authors.forename: Miiamaaria V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Kujala
keywords: domestic dog; eye movement; eye tracking; social interaction