TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluating and re-evaluating intra- and inter-species social transmission of food preferences in domestic dogs
AU - Mendez, Armando D.
AU - Hall, Nathaniel J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the dog and owner participants for playing along in this study. The authors also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Lastly, the authors would like to thank the Canine Olfaction Lab members who helped facilitate the dog-dog interaction for Experiment 2. The Texas Tech University Honors College Undergraduate Research Scholars Program supported by the CH and Helen Jones Foundation supported AM.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Social-transmission of food preference is a robust behavioral phenomenon in rodents and other species, but less work has evaluated this phenomenon in broader taxa and to what degree social-transmission can occur between species. Here we show that over the span of three experiments that consisted of a human-dog, a dog-dog, and a replication study of a dog-dog demonstrator-observer test, we did not observe successful social transmission of food preferences across all three experiments. For our first experiment, we investigated whether pet dogs acquire food preference from their owners using a two-bowl preference test. The results suggested that our dogs did not acquire a preference for the flavor consumed by their owners. This then led us to investigate whether this failure was the result of an inter-species failure, so we replicated the experiment using two familiar dogs as the demonstrator and observer. The results for Experiment Two also suggested that our participant dogs do not acquire food preference from a canine demonstrator. A third experiment attempted a direct replication of the Lupfer-Johnson and Ross (2007) that found dog-dog transmission of food preferences. Our results again indicated that our participant dogs did not acquire food preference from demonstrators. Over the span of three experiments, our results did not show clear canine food preferences for the food consumed by a demonstrator (human or dog).
AB - Social-transmission of food preference is a robust behavioral phenomenon in rodents and other species, but less work has evaluated this phenomenon in broader taxa and to what degree social-transmission can occur between species. Here we show that over the span of three experiments that consisted of a human-dog, a dog-dog, and a replication study of a dog-dog demonstrator-observer test, we did not observe successful social transmission of food preferences across all three experiments. For our first experiment, we investigated whether pet dogs acquire food preference from their owners using a two-bowl preference test. The results suggested that our dogs did not acquire a preference for the flavor consumed by their owners. This then led us to investigate whether this failure was the result of an inter-species failure, so we replicated the experiment using two familiar dogs as the demonstrator and observer. The results for Experiment Two also suggested that our participant dogs do not acquire food preference from a canine demonstrator. A third experiment attempted a direct replication of the Lupfer-Johnson and Ross (2007) that found dog-dog transmission of food preferences. Our results again indicated that our participant dogs did not acquire food preference from demonstrators. Over the span of three experiments, our results did not show clear canine food preferences for the food consumed by a demonstrator (human or dog).
KW - Domestic dog
KW - Human-animal interaction
KW - Social transmission of food preferences
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112372867&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104471
DO - 10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104471
M3 - Article
C2 - 34339833
AN - SCOPUS:85112372867
VL - 191
JO - Behavioural Processes
JF - Behavioural Processes
SN - 0376-6357
M1 - 104471
ER -