Wolves and dogs recruit human partners in the cooperative string-pulling task

Friederike Range,Mónica Boada,Alexandra Kassis,Sarah Marshall-Pescini,Michael Taborsky

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-53632-1

Abstract

In comparison to non-human animals, humans are highly flexible in cooperative tasks, which may be a result of their ability to understand a partner’s role in such interactions. Here, we tested if wolves and dogs could flexibly adjust their behaviour according to whether they needed a partner to solve a cooperative loose string-pulling paradigm. First, we presented animals with a delay condition where a human partner was released after the subject so that the animal had to delay pulling the string to enable coordinated pulling with the human partner. Subsequently, we investigated whether subjects would recruit a partner depending on whether they could operate the apparatus alone, or help from a partner was required. Both wolves and dogs successfully waited in the delay condition in 88% of the trials. Experimental subjects were also successful in recruiting a partner, which occurred significantly more often in the cooperation trials than in the solo pulling condition. No species differences were found in either experiment. These results suggest that both wolves and dogs have some understanding of whether a social partner is needed to accomplish a task, which enables behavioural coordination and cooperation.

Highlights

In comparison to non-human animals, humans are highly flexible in cooperative tasks, which may be a result of their ability to understand a partner’s role in such interactions
The full model did not significantly differ from the null model (χ2 = 0.1597 p = 0.923), suggesting success was affected by neither species nor session. Both dogs and wolves were highly successful in the delay condition, on average waiting for their partner in 88% of the trials
Since previous studies have suggested that dogs show a greater propensity to stay in proximity to humans than wolves[27], it could still be that the success of dogs in the delay condition was due to their motivation to stay close to the human, rather than an understanding of the need for a partner to solve the task

Summary

Introduction

In comparison to non-human animals, humans are highly flexible in cooperative tasks, which may be a result of their ability to understand a partner’s role in such interactions. We investigated whether subjects would recruit a partner depending on whether they could operate the apparatus alone, or help from a partner was required Both wolves and dogs successfully waited in the delay condition in 88% of the trials. No species differences were found in either experiment These results suggest that both wolves and dogs have some understanding of whether a social partner is needed to accomplish a task, which enables behavioural coordination and cooperation. Human cooperation is characterized by enormous flexibility in response to one another, which may be explained by the fact that humans can recognize the role of a social partner in cooperative interactions and adjust their behaviour [5] When testing such understanding in non-human animals, the loosestring- pulling paradigm has often been used.

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Conclusion