Abstract
Gaze following is the ability to utilise information from another’s gaze. It is most often seen in a social context or as a reflexive response to interesting external stimuli. Social species can potentially reveal utilisable knowledge about another’s future intentions by attending to the target of their gaze. However, in even more fundamental situations, being sensitive to another’s gaze can also be useful such as when it can facilitate greater foraging efficiency or lead to earlier predator detection. While gaze sensitivity has been shown to be prevalent in a number of social species, little is currently known about the potential for gaze following in asocial species. The current study investigated whether an asocial reptile, the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius), could reliably use the visual indicators of attention to follow the gaze of a conspecific around a barrier. We operated three trial conditions and found subjects (N = 6) responded significantly more to the conspecific demonstrator looking up at a laser stimulus projected onto an occluder during the experimental condition compared to either of two control conditions. The study’s findings point toward growing evidence for gaze-following ability in reptiles, who are typically categorised as asocial. Furthermore, our findings support developing comparative social cognition research showing the origins of gaze following and other cognitive behaviours that may be more widely distributed across taxonomic groups than hitherto thought.
Highlights
Gaze following is the ability to coordinate one’s gaze with that of another individual (Butterworth and Jarett 1991)
Seven captive-bred leopard geckos were used in the study
The current study’s findings have revealed the first recorded occurrence of gaze-following behaviour in leopard geckos and, to our knowledge, only the third time evidence for gazefollowing abilities have been found in reptiles in general (Wilkinson et al 2010)
Summary
Gaze following is the ability to coordinate one’s gaze with that of another individual (Butterworth and Jarett 1991). Growing evidence points toward social factors often being responsible for influencing gaze-following responses (Frith and Frith 2008; Goossens et al 2008; Jones et al 2010; Kano and Call 2014). It may not be always modulated by a reflexive biological response alone, demonstrated in relation to seeing another individual viewing an interesting stimulus (cf Senju et al 2004).
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