Knowing human gaze

Title

Knowing human gaze

Creator

Ittyerah M.

Description

Studies have examined the understanding of human gaze in animals. Gaze following in human infants has been successfully demonstrated, showing that infants can follow the eye direction of another though the ability to represent the intentions of gaze behaviour emerges only after the onset of object permanence or a period over eighteen months of age. Comparative studies indicate that gaze following or gazing at humans vary in different species of animals. Wolves for example were observed to look least at human experimenters during a performance task, whereas dogs turned to look more often and monkeys looked to a lesser extent at their experimenters. It is of interest to discuss that gaze following is different from understanding gaze. Dogs have been observed to be successful in gaze following and almost at par with young children. However, the intention of another's gaze is not as clearly understood by dogs as in humans. We (Ittyerah and Gaunet 2009) have shown that the response of dogs to the gaze of their caretakers did not differ between guide dogs of the blind and pet dogs of sighted people. Both groups of dogs seemed to have responded to the head direction of their caretakers during a search task, indicating that the visual status of the caretaker did not affect the dog's understanding of human gaze. Further some breeds of dogs may respond more often to gaze, while larger inter ocular distances in large dogs could facilitate their response to visual cues. Therefore awareness of interactions between breed and physical size could contribute to studying gaze and cognition among dogs.

Source

Dogs: Biology, Behavior and Health Disorders, pp. 179-187.

Date

2011-01-01

Publisher

Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Coverage

Ittyerah M., Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bangalore 560029, India

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISBN: 978-161209653-7

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84892126647&partnerID=40&md5=d0efc9f4b987f7b84fdee1b2ee855890