Cooperative communication with humans evolved to emerge early in domestic dogs

While we know that dogs evolved from wolves, it remains unclear how
domestication affected dog cognition. One hypothesis suggests dog
domestication altered social maturation by a process of selecting for an
attraction to humans. Under this account, dogs became more flexible in
using inherited skills to cooperatively-communicate with a new social
partner that was previously feared and expressed these unusual social
skills early in development. Here we tested dog (N=44) and wolf (N=37)
puppies, 5-18 weeks old, on a battery of temperament and cognition tasks.
We found that dog puppies were more attracted to humans, read human
gestures more skillfully, and made more eye contact with humans than wolf
puppies. The two species were similarly attracted to objects and performed
similarly on nonsocial measures of memory and inhibitory control. These
results are consistent with the idea that domestication enhanced the
cooperative-communicative abilities of dogs as selection for attraction to
humans altered social maturation.

尽管学界已明确家犬由灰狼演化而来，但驯化过程如何影响家犬的认知能力，目前仍无定论。有假说提出，家犬驯化通过定向选择对人类的亲和力，改变了其社会成熟进程。据此假说，家犬在运用先天技能与此前令其畏惧的全新社交伙伴开展协作式沟通时，表现出更强的灵活性，并在发育早期便展现出这类非比寻常的社交能力。本研究针对家犬幼崽（N=44）与灰狼幼崽（N=37）开展了成套的气质与认知测试任务，受试幼崽年龄介于5至18周龄。结果显示，相较于灰狼幼崽，家犬幼崽对人类更具亲和力，更能精准解读人类的肢体动作，且与人类的眼神交流频次更高。两类幼崽对物体的亲和力相近，在记忆与抑制控制的非社交维度测试中表现也无显著差异。上述结果契合以下假说：由于定向选择对人类的亲和力改变了家犬的社会成熟进程，驯化过程提升了家犬的协作式沟通能力。