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Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris)

Overview of attention for article published in Animal Cognition, January 2008
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (58th percentile)

Mentioned by

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1 news outlet
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
13 X users

Citations

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217 Dimensions

Readers on

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416 Mendeley
Title
Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris)
Published in
Animal Cognition, January 2008
DOI 10.1007/s10071-007-0127-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Zsófia Virányi, Márta Gácsi, Enikő Kubinyi, József Topál, Beatrix Belényi, Dorottya Ujfalussy, Ádám Miklósi

Abstract

Dogs have a remarkable skill to use human-given cues in object-choice tasks, but little is known to what extent their closest wild-living relative, the wolf can achieve this performance. In Study 1, we compared wolf and dog pups hand-reared individually and pet dogs of the same age in their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter in an object-choice task and to follow her pointing gesture. The results showed that dogs already at 4 months of age use momentary distal pointing to find hidden food even without intensive early socialization. Wolf pups, on the contrary, do not attend to this subtle pointing. Accordingly in Studies 2 and 3, these wolves were tested longitudinally with this and four other (easier) human-given cues. This revealed that wolves socialized at a comparable level to dogs are able to use simple human-given cues spontaneously if the human's hand is close to the baited container (e.g. touching, proximal pointing). Study 4 showed that wolves can follow also momentary distal pointing similarly to dogs if they have received extensive formal training. Comparing the wolves to naïve pet dogs of the same age revealed that during several months of formal training wolves can reach the level of dogs in their success of following momentary distal pointing in parallel with improving their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter. We assume that the high variability in the wolves' communicative behaviour might have provided a basis for selection during the course of domestication of the dog.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 13 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 416 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 4 <1%
Austria 4 <1%
Germany 3 <1%
Hungary 3 <1%
United Kingdom 3 <1%
Brazil 3 <1%
Italy 2 <1%
Czechia 2 <1%
India 2 <1%
Other 12 3%
Unknown 378 91%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 78 19%
Researcher 69 17%
Student > Master 66 16%
Student > Bachelor 50 12%
Other 28 7%
Other 66 16%
Unknown 59 14%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 201 48%
Psychology 59 14%
Environmental Science 28 7%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 17 4%
Social Sciences 9 2%
Other 28 7%
Unknown 74 18%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 31. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 November 2023.
All research outputs
#1,283,574
of 25,595,500 outputs
Outputs from Animal Cognition
#298
of 1,577 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,804
of 169,874 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Animal Cognition
#6
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,595,500 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,577 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 36.0. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 169,874 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.