Bottlenosed Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) Comprehend the Referent of Both Static and Dynamic Human Gazing and Pointing in an Object-Choice Task
Publication Type: |
Journal Article |
Year of Publication: |
2004 |
Authors: |
AA Pack, LM. Herman |
Publication/Journal: |
Journal of Comparative Psychology |
Keywords: |
alternative object, bottlenosed dolphins, cues, dolphins, dynamic gaze, human-directed gazing, performance, static gaze, understanding |
ISBN: |
0735-7036 |
Abstract:
The authors tested 2 bottlenosed dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) for their understanding of human-directed gazing or pointing in a 2-alternative object-choice task. A dolphin watched a human informant either gazing at or pointing toward 1 of 2 laterally placed objects and was required to perform a previously indicated action to that object. Both static and dynamic gaze, as well as static and dynamic direct points and cross-body points, yielded errorless or nearly errorless performance. Gaze with the informants torso obscured (only the head was shown) produced no performance decrement, but gaze with eyes only resulted in chance performance. The results revealed spontaneous understanding of human gaze accomplished through head orientation, with or without the human informants eyes obscured, and demonstrated that gaze-directed cues were as effective as point-directed cues in the object-choice task.