An adaptation of the goggles experiment for dogs: Evidence that dogs are unable to use their own experience to infer a human’s visual perspective

Abstract

Abstract Dogs have strong bonds with humans but the extent to which they can take our perspective into account is still in question. This study adapts the goggles experiment methodology to investigate if domestic dogs engage in level 2 perspective taking. The dogs not only have to understand when the human individual’s line of sight is blocked (level 1 perspective taking), but have to infer the other individual’s visual experience based on their own previous experience. A competitive context of food stealing is used. Dogs (N = 24) first gained experience with two compartments, learning that food was accessible from one end while the other end had either a transparent or opaque lid. When stealing the food, dogs were visible to the human only through the transparent lid. In the test, dogs experienced two conditions: where both compartments were baited and a human either remained in the room (social condition) or left the room (non-social condition). Three factors were observed: (i) whether the dog took the food, (ii) the compartment the dog stole from, and (iii) latency to steal. The findings revealed that dogs didn't exhibit a preference for stealing from the concealed side, demonstrating that dogs don't consider the human's perspective when selecting which food to steal. However, in the social condition more dogs refrained from stealing, demonstrating sensitivity to the scenario’s competitive nature. It’s possible that the setting was overall too challenging and future research should look for alternative procedures to address the question of dogs’ understanding of a human’s perspective.