‘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

Verfasser / Beitragende:
[Christian Nawroth, Eberhard von Borell, Jan Langbein]
Ort, Verlag, Jahr:
2015
Enthalten in:
Animal Cognition, 18/1(2015-01-01), 65-73
Format:
Artikel (online)
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024 7 0 |a 10.1007/s10071-014-0777-5  |2 doi 
035 |a (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10071-014-0777-5 
245 0 0 |a ‘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  |h [Elektronische Daten]  |c [Christian Nawroth, Eberhard von Borell, Jan Langbein] 
520 3 |a Recently, comparative research on the mechanisms and species-specific adaptive values of attributing attentive states and using communicative cues has gained increased interest, particularly in non-human primates, birds, and dogs. Here, we investigate these phenomena in a farm animal species, the dwarf goat (Capra aegagrus hircus). In the first experiment, we investigated the effects of different human head and body orientations, as well as human experimenter presence/absence, on the behaviour of goats in a food-anticipating paradigm. Over a 30-s interval, the experimenter engaged in one of four different postures or behaviours (head and body towards the subject—'Control', head to the side, head and body away from the subject, or leaving the room) before delivering a reward. We found that the level of subjects' active anticipatory behaviour was highest in the control condition and decreased with a decreasing level of attention paid to the subject by the experimenter. Additionally, goats ‘stared' (i.e. stood alert) at the experimental set-up for significantly more time when the experimenter was present but paid less attention to the subject (‘Head' and ‘Back' condition) than in the ‘Control' and ‘Out' conditions. In a second experiment, the experimenter provided different human-given cues that indicated the location of a hidden food reward in a two-way object choice task. Goats were able to use both ‘Touch' and ‘Point' cues to infer the correct location of the reward but did not perform above the level expected by chance in the ‘Head only' condition. We conclude that goats are able to differentiate among different body postures of a human, including head orientation; however, despite their success at using multiple physical human cues, they fail to spontaneously use human head direction as a cue in a food-related context. 
540 |a Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2014 
690 7 |a Dwarf goats  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Social cognition  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Food-anticipation paradigm  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Attentive states  |2 nationallicence 
690 7 |a Human-given cues  |2 nationallicence 
700 1 |a Nawroth  |D Christian  |u Department of Animal Husbandry and Ecology, Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany  |4 aut 
700 1 |a von Borell  |D Eberhard  |u Department of Animal Husbandry and Ecology, Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany  |4 aut 
700 1 |a Langbein  |D Jan  |u Institute of Behavioural Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Dummerstorf, Germany  |4 aut 
773 0 |t Animal Cognition  |d Springer Berlin Heidelberg  |g 18/1(2015-01-01), 65-73  |x 1435-9448  |q 18:1<65  |1 2015  |2 18  |o 10071 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0777-5  |q text/html  |z Onlinezugriff via DOI 
898 |a BK010053  |b XK010053  |c XK010000 
900 7 |a Metadata rights reserved  |b Springer special CC-BY-NC licence  |2 nationallicence 
908 |D 1  |a research-article  |2 jats 
949 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |F NATIONALLICENCE  |b NL-springer 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 856  |E 40  |u https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0777-5  |q text/html  |z Onlinezugriff via DOI 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Nawroth  |D Christian  |u Department of Animal Husbandry and Ecology, Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a von Borell  |D Eberhard  |u Department of Animal Husbandry and Ecology, Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin-Luther-University, Halle, Germany  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 700  |E 1-  |a Langbein  |D Jan  |u Institute of Behavioural Physiology, Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Dummerstorf, Germany  |4 aut 
950 |B NATIONALLICENCE  |P 773  |E 0-  |t Animal Cognition  |d Springer Berlin Heidelberg  |g 18/1(2015-01-01), 65-73  |x 1435-9448  |q 18:1<65  |1 2015  |2 18  |o 10071