1
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Naïve chicks do not prefer objects with stable body orientation, though they may prefer behavioural variability. Anim Cogn 2023:10.1007/s10071-023-01764-3. [PMID: 36933076 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-023-01764-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/11/2022] [Revised: 02/27/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 03/19/2023]
Abstract
Domestic chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) have been widely used as a model to study the motion cues that allow visually naïve organisms to detect animate agents shortly after hatching/birth. Our previous work has shown that chicks prefer to approach agents whose main body axis and motion direction are aligned (a feature typical of creatures whose motion is constrained by a bilaterally symmetric body plan). However, it has never been investigated whether chicks are also sensitive to the fact that an agent maintains a stable front-back body orientation in motion (i.e. consistency in which end is leading and which trailing). This is another feature typical of bilateria, which is also associated with the detection of animate agents in humans. The aim of the present study was to fill this gap. Contrary to our initial expectations, after testing 300 chicks across 3 experimental conditions, we found a recurrent preference for the agent which did not maintain a stable front-back body orientation. Since this preference was limited to female chicks, the results are discussed also in relation to sex differences in the social behaviour of this model. Overall, we show for the first time that chicks can discriminate agents based on the stability of their front-back orientation. The unexpected direction of the effect could reflect a preference for agents' whose behaviour is less predictable. Chicks may prefer agents with greater behavioural variability, a trait which has been associated with animate agents, or have a tendency to explore agents performing "odd behaviours".
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2
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Visual perception of emotion cues in dogs: a critical review of methodologies. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:727-754. [PMID: 36870003 PMCID: PMC10066124 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-023-01762-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/22/2022] [Revised: 02/07/2023] [Accepted: 02/20/2023] [Indexed: 03/05/2023]
Abstract
Comparative studies of human-dog cognition have grown exponentially since the 2000's, but the focus on how dogs look at us (as well as other dogs) as social partners is a more recent phenomenon despite its importance to human-dog interactions. Here, we briefly summarise the current state of research in visual perception of emotion cues in dogs and why this area is important; we then critically review its most commonly used methods, by discussing conceptual and methodological challenges and associated limitations in depth; finally, we suggest some possible solutions and recommend best practice for future research. Typically, most studies in this field have concentrated on facial emotional cues, with full body information rarely considered. There are many challenges in the way studies are conceptually designed (e.g., use of non-naturalistic stimuli) and the way researchers incorporate biases (e.g., anthropomorphism) into experimental designs, which may lead to problematic conclusions. However, technological and scientific advances offer the opportunity to gather much more valid, objective, and systematic data in this rapidly expanding field of study. Solving conceptual and methodological challenges in the field of emotion perception research in dogs will not only be beneficial in improving research in dog-human interactions, but also within the comparative psychology area, in which dogs are an important model species to study evolutionary processes.
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3
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Lõoke M, Kanizsar O, Guérineau C, Mongillo P, Marinelli L. Dogs' ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:523-535. [PMID: 36167877 PMCID: PMC9950174 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01695-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/03/2022] [Revised: 09/19/2022] [Accepted: 09/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
Visually tracking a moving object, even if it becomes temporarily invisible, is an important skill for animals living in complex environments. However, this ability has not been widely explored in dogs. To address this gap of knowledge and understand how experience contributes to such ability, we conducted two experiments using a violation of expectation paradigm. Dogs were shown an animation of a ball moving horizontally across a screen, passing behind an occluder, and reappearing with a timing that was faster, slower or congruent with its initial speed. In the first experiment, dogs (N = 15) were exposed to the incongruent conditions without prior experience; while in the second experiment, dogs (N = 37) were preliminarily exposed to the congruent stimulus. Dogs of the first experiment did not exhibit a surprise effect, as measured by latency to look away from the expected stimulus presentation area, in response to the incongruent conditions, suggesting they had not formed an expectation about the timing of reappearance. However, their latency to orient towards the reappearing ball depended on the condition, suggesting they were able, to some extent, to visually keep track of the stimulus' trajectory. Dogs of the second experiment were surprised when the ball stayed behind the occluder longer than expected, but showed no difference in latency to orient across conditions. This suggests they had overcome the visual tracking mechanism and had formed expectations about the timing of reappearance. In conclusion, dogs seem to use a low-level mechanism to keep visual track of a temporarily disappearing moving object, but experience is required to make expectation about its trajectory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Miina Lõoke
- grid.5608.b0000 0004 1757 3470Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD Italy
| | - Orsolya Kanizsar
- grid.5608.b0000 0004 1757 3470Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD Italy
| | - Cécile Guérineau
- grid.5608.b0000 0004 1757 3470Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD Italy
| | - Paolo Mongillo
- Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, PD, Italy.
| | - Lieta Marinelli
- grid.5608.b0000 0004 1757 3470Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell’Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, PD Italy
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4
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Autonomic nervous system responses of dogs to human-dog interaction videos. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0257788. [PMID: 36327316 PMCID: PMC9632911 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257788] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2021] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
Abstract
We examined whether dogs show emotional response to social stimuli played on videos. Secondary, we hypothesized that if dogs recognize themselves in videos, they will show a different emotional response to videos of self and other dogs. We compared heart rate variability among four video stimuli: a video of the owner ignoring another dog (OW-A-IGN), a video of a non-owner interacting with another dog (NOW-A-INT), a video of the owner interacting with another dog (OW-A-INT), and a video of the owner interacting with the dog subject (OW-S-INT). The results showed that root mean square of the difference between adjacent R-R Intervals (RMSSD) and standard deviation of the R-R Interval (SDNN) were lower in NOW-A-INT and OW-S-INT than in OW-A-IGN. There was no statistical difference in the responses to OW-S-INT and OW-A-INT, suggesting that dogs did not distinguish themselves and other dogs in videos. On the other hand, the difference in mean R-R Interval between OW-S-INT and OW-A-INT showed positive correlation with the score of attachment or attention-seeking behavior. Therefore, this study does not completely rule out self-recognition in dogs and there remains the possibility that the more attached a dog to its owner, the more distinct the dog’s emotional response to the difference between the self-video stimulus and the video stimulus of another dog. Further studies are needed to clarify this possibility.
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5
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Völter CJ, Huber L. Pupil size changes reveal dogs' sensitivity to motion cues. iScience 2022; 25:104801. [PMID: 36051183 PMCID: PMC9424576 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104801] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/13/2021] [Revised: 12/23/2021] [Accepted: 06/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Certain motion cues like self-propulsion and speed changes allow human and nonhuman animals to quickly detect animate beings. In the current eye-tracking study, we examined whether dogs' (Canis familiaris) pupil size was influenced by such motion cues. In Experiment 1, dogs watched different videos with normal or reversed playback direction showing a human agent releasing an object. The reversed playback gave the impression that the objects were self-propelled. In Experiment 2, dogs watched videos of a rolling ball that either moved at constant or variable speed. We found that the dogs' pupil size only changed significantly over the course of the videos in the conditions with self-propelled (upward) movements (Experiment 1) or variable speed (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that dogs orient toward self-propelled stimuli that move at variable speed, which might contribute to their detection of animate beings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christoph J. Völter
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, Veterinaerplatz 1, 1210 Vienna, Austria
| | - Ludwig Huber
- Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, Veterinaerplatz 1, 1210 Vienna, Austria
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6
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Ma X, Yuan X, Liu J, Shen L, Yu Y, Zhou W, Liu Z, Jiang Y. Gravity-Dependent Animacy Perception in Zebrafish. RESEARCH (WASHINGTON, D.C.) 2022; 2022:9829016. [PMID: 36128180 PMCID: PMC9470206 DOI: 10.34133/2022/9829016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2022] [Accepted: 07/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/13/2022]
Abstract
Biological motion (BM), depicted by a handful of point lights attached to the major joints, conveys rich animacy information, which is significantly disrupted if BM is shown upside down. This well-known inversion effect in BM perception is conserved in terrestrial vertebrates and is presumably a manifestation of an evolutionarily endowed perceptual filter (i.e., life motion detector) tuned to gravity-compatible BM. However, it remains unknown whether aquatic animals, living in a completely different environment from terrestrial animals, perceive BM in a gravity-dependent manner. Here, taking advantage of their typical shoaling behaviors, we used zebrafish as a model animal to examine the ability of teleosts to discriminate between upright (gravity-compatible) and inverted (gravity-incompatible) BM signals. We recorded their swimming trajectories and quantified their preference based on dwelling time and head orientation. The results obtained from three experiments consistently showed that zebrafish spent significantly more time swimming in proximity to and orienting towards the upright BM relative to the inverted BM or other gravity-incompatible point-light stimuli (i.e., the non-BM). More intriguingly, when the recorded point-light video clips of fish were directly compared with those of human walkers and pigeons, we could identify a unique and consistent pattern of accelerating movements in the vertical (gravity) direction. These findings, to our knowledge, demonstrate for the first time the inversion effect in BM perception in simple aquatic vertebrates and suggest that the evolutionary origin of gravity-dependent BM processing may be traced back to ancient aquatic animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaohan Ma
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Xiangyong Yuan
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Jiahuan Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
| | - Li Shen
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Yiwen Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Wen Zhou
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
| | - Zuxiang Liu
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei 230088, China
| | - Yi Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing 102206, China
- Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei 230088, China
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7
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Eatherington CJ, Mongillo P, Lõoke M, Marinelli L. Dogs fail to recognize a human pointing gesture in two-dimensional depictions of motion cues. Behav Processes 2021; 189:104425. [PMID: 34010674 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2021] [Revised: 05/11/2021] [Accepted: 05/13/2021] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Few studies have investigated biological motion perception in dogs and it remains unknown whether dogs recognise the biological identity of two-dimensional animations of human motion cues. To test this, we assessed the dogs' (N = 32) responses to point-light displays of a human performing a pointing gesture towards one of two pots. At the start of the experiment the demonstrator was a real-life person, but over the course of the test dogs were presented with two-dimensional figurative representations of pointing gestures in which visual information was progressively removed until only the isolated motion cues remained. Dogs' accuracy was above chance level only with real-life and black-and-white videos, but not with the silhouette or the point-light figure. Dogs' accuracy during these conditions was significantly lower than in the real-life condition. This result could not be explained by trial order since dogs' performance was still not higher than chance when only the point-light figure condition was presented after the initial demonstration. The results imply that dogs are unable to recognise humans in two-dimensional depictions of human motion cues only. In spite of extensive exposure to human movement, dogs need more perceptual cues to detect equivalence between human two-dimensional animations and the represented living entity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carla J Eatherington
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Paolo Mongillo
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy.
| | - Miina Lõoke
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Lieta Marinelli
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
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8
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Mongillo P, Eatherington C, Lõoke M, Marinelli L. I know a dog when I see one: dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize dogs from videos. Anim Cogn 2021; 24:969-979. [PMID: 33740148 PMCID: PMC8360863 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-021-01470-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2020] [Revised: 12/24/2020] [Accepted: 01/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Several aspects of dogs’ visual and social cognition have been explored using bi-dimensional representations of other dogs. It remains unclear, however, if dogs do recognize as dogs the stimuli depicted in such representations, especially with regard to videos. To test this, 32 pet dogs took part in a cross-modal violation of expectancy experiment, during which dogs were shown videos of either a dog and that of an unfamiliar animal, paired with either the sound of a dog barking or of an unfamiliar vocalization. While stimuli were being presented, dogs paid higher attention to the exit region of the presentation area, when the visual stimulus represented a dog than when it represented an unfamiliar species. After exposure to the stimuli, dogs’ attention to different parts of the presentation area depended on the specific combination of visual and auditory stimuli. Of relevance, dogs paid less attention to the central part of the presentation area and more to the entrance area after being exposed to the barking and dog video pair, than when either was paired with an unfamiliar stimulus. These results indicate dogs were surprised by the latter pairings, not by the former, and were interested in where the barking and dog pair came from, implying recognition of the two stimuli as belonging to a conspecific. The study represents the first demonstration that dogs can recognize other conspecifics in videos.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paolo Mongillo
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Carla Eatherington
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Miina Lõoke
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy
| | - Lieta Marinelli
- Laboratory of Applied Ethology, Department of Comparative Biomedicine and Food Science, University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020, Legnaro, Italy.
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9
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Völter CJ, Karl S, Huber L. Dogs accurately track a moving object on a screen and anticipate its destination. Sci Rep 2020; 10:19832. [PMID: 33199751 PMCID: PMC7670446 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-72506-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/26/2020] [Accepted: 09/02/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The prediction of upcoming events is of importance not only to humans and non-human primates but also to other animals that live in complex environments with lurking threats or moving prey. In this study, we examined motion tracking and anticipatory looking in dogs in two eye-tracking experiments. In Experiment 1, we presented pet dogs (N = 14) with a video depicting how two players threw a Frisbee back and forth multiple times. The horizontal movement of the Frisbee explained a substantial amount of variance of the dogs' horizontal eye movements. With increasing duration of the video, the dogs looked at the catcher before the Frisbee arrived. In Experiment 2, we showed the dogs (N = 12) the same video recording. This time, however, we froze and rewound parts of the video to examine how the dogs would react to surprising events (i.e., the Frisbee hovering in midair and reversing its direction). The Frisbee again captured the dogs' attention, particularly when the video was frozen and rewound for the first time. Additionally, the dogs looked faster at the catcher when the video moved forward compared to when it was rewound. We conclude that motion tracking and anticipatory looking paradigms provide promising tools for future cognitive research with canids.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christoph J Völter
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Messerli Research Institute, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Sabrina Karl
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Messerli Research Institute, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Ludwig Huber
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Messerli Research Institute, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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10
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Delanoeije J, Gerencsér L, Miklósi Á. Do dogs mind the dots? Investigating domestic dogs' (
Canis familiaris
) preferential looking at human‐shaped point‐light figures. Ethology 2020. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.13016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Joni Delanoeije
- Department of Ethology Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Hungary
| | - Linda Gerencsér
- Department of Ethology Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Hungary
- MTA‐ELTE “Lendület” Neuroethology of Communication Research Group Hungarian Academy of Sciences—Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Hungary
| | - Ádám Miklósi
- Department of Ethology Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Hungary
- MTA‐ELTE Comparative Research Group Budapest Hungary
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