Abstract
Being able to recognise when one is being observed by someone else is thought to be adaptive during cooperative or competitive events. In particular for prey species, this ability should be of use in the context of predation. A previous study reported that goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) alter their behaviour according to the body and head orientation of a human experimenter. During a food anticipation task, an experimenter remained in a particular posture for 30 s before delivering a reward, and the goats’ active anticipation and standing alert behaviour were analysed. To further evaluate the specific mechanisms at work, we here present two additional test conditions. In particular, we investigated the effects of the eye visibility and head orientation of a human experimenter on the behaviour of the goats (N = 7). We found that the level of the subjects’ active anticipatory behaviour was highest in the conditions where the experimenter was directing his head and body towards the goat (‘Control’ and ‘Eyes closed’ conditions), but the anticipatory behaviour was significantly decreased when the body (‘Head only’) or the head and body of the experimenter were directed away from the subject (‘Back’ condition). For standing alert, we found no significant differences between the three conditions in which the experimenter was directing his head towards the subject (‘Control’, ‘Eyes closed’ and ‘Head only’). This lack of differences in the expression of standing alert suggests that goats evaluate the direction of a human’s head as an important cue in their anticipatory behaviour. However, goats did not respond to the visibility of the experimenter’s eyes alone.
References
Bania AE, Stromberg EE (2012) The Effect of Body Orientation on Judgments of Human Visual Attention in Western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). J Comp Psychol. doi:10.1037/a0027261
Botting JL, Wiper ML, Anderson JR (2011) Brown (Eulemur fulvus) and ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) use human head orientation as a cue to gaze direction in a food choice task. Folia Primatol 82:165–176. doi:10.1159/000333142
Bourjade M, Meguerditchian A, Maille A et al (2014) Olive baboons, Papio anubis, adjust their visual and auditory intentional gestures to the visual attention of others. Anim Behav 87:121–128. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.10.019
Bulloch MJ, Boysen ST, Furlong EE (2008) Visual attention and its relation to knowledge states in chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. Anim Behav 76:1147–1155. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.01.033
Davidson GL, Butler S, Fernández-Juricic E et al (2014) Gaze sensitivity: function and mechanisms from sensory and cognitive perspectives. Anim Behav 87:3–15. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.10.024
Emery NJ (2000) The eyes have it: the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 24:581–604
Gácsi M, Miklósi Á, Varga O et al (2004) Are readers of our face readers of our minds? Dogs (Canis familiaris) show situation-dependent recognition of human’s attention. Anim Cogn 7:144–153. doi:10.1007/s10071-003-0205-8
Hattori Y, Kuroshima H, Fujita K (2007) I know you are not looking at me: capuchin monkeys´ (Cebus apella) sensitivity to human attentional states. Anim Cogn 10:141–148. doi:10.1007/s10071-006-0049-0
Hattori Y, Kuroshima H, Fujita K (2010) Tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) show understanding of human attentional states when requesting food held by a human. Anim Cogn 13:87–92. doi:10.1007/s10071-009-0248-6
Kaminski J, Call J, Tomasello M (2004) Body orientation and face orientation: two factors controlling apes’ behavior from humans. Anim Cogn 7:216–223. doi:10.1007/s10071-004-0214-2
Maille A, Engelhart L, Bourjade M, Blois-Heulin C (2012) To beg, or not to beg? That is the question: mangabeys modify their production of requesting gestures in response to human’s attentional states. PLoS One 7:e41197. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041197
Nawroth C, von Borell E, Langbein J (2014) Exclusion performance in dwarf goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) and sheep (Ovis orientalis aries). PLoS One 9:e93534. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093534
Nawroth C, von Borell E, Langbein J (2015a) “Goats that stare at men”: dwarf goats alter their behaviour in response to human head orientation, but do not spontaneously use head direction as a cue in a food-related context. Anim Cogn 18:65–73. doi:10.1007/s10071-014-0777-5
Nawroth C, von Borell E, Langbein J (2015b) Object permanence in the dwarf goat (Capra aegagrus hircus): perseveration errors and the tracking of complex movements of hidden objects. Appl Anim Behav Sci 167:20–26. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2015.03.010
Proops L, McComb K (2010) Attributing attention: the use of human-given cues by domestic horses (Equus caballus). Anim Cogn 13:197–205. doi:10.1007/s10071-009-0257-5
Proops L, Rayner J, Taylor AM, McComb K (2013) The responses of young domestic horses to human-given cues. PLoS One 8:e67000. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067000
Roberts W, Macpherson K (2011) Theory of mind in dogs: is the perspective-taking task a good test? Learn Behav 39:303–305. doi:10.3758/s13420-011-0037-3
Sandel AA, MacLean EL, Hare B (2011) Evidence from four lemur species that ringtailed lemur social cognition converges with that of haplorhine primates. Anim Behav 81:925–931. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2011.01.020
Tate AJ, Fischer H, Leigh AE, Kendrick KM (2006) Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for face identity and face emotion processing in animals. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 361:2155–2172. doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.1937
Tempelmann S, Kaminski J, Liebal K (2011) Focus on the essential: all great apes know when others are being attentive. Anim Cogn 14:433–439. doi:10.1007/s10071-011-0378-5
Udell M, Dorey N, Wynne C (2011) Can your dog read your mind? Understanding the causes of canine perspective taking. Learn Behav 39:289–302. doi:10.3758/s13420-011-0034-6
Virányi Z, Range F (2011) Evaluating the logic of perspective-taking experiments. Learn Behav 39:306–309. doi:10.3758/s13420-011-0040-8
Acknowledgments
The authors declare no competing interests. This study was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (NA 1233/1-1) to Christian Nawroth. We would like to thank Katrin Siebert for data coding, Gerd Nürnberg for statistical advice and Dieter Sehland and Heinz Deike for excellent technical assistance. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nawroth, C., von Borell, E. & Langbein, J. ‘Goats that stare at men’—revisited: do dwarf goats alter their behaviour in response to eye visibility and head direction of a human?. Anim Cogn 19, 667–672 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0957-6
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0957-6