Gaze following—the ability to co-orient with another’s line of sight—plays a vital role in social cognition across species. Both humans and many animals use gaze following to gather environmental information, but its complexity varies by context. Werhahn and colleagues (2016) investigated whether domestication has influenced dogs’ gaze-following abilities by comparing them with wolves raised under identical pack-living conditions.
In Study 1, wolves reliably followed a human’s gaze into distant space, even when it lacked strong communicative signals. Dogs, however, failed to follow this minimally communicative gaze in the same setup, suggesting that they rely on human gaze being clearly directed at them to respond effectively. This distinction highlights how domestication may have tuned dogs’ social responsiveness specifically toward intentional human communication.
In contrast, Study 2 showed that both wolves and dogs followed the spontaneous gaze of conspecifics with similar frequency, demonstrating that domestication did not diminish their basic intraspecific gaze-following skills. Both species were equally vigilant and responsive in the social context of their packmates.
The findings suggest that dogs’ unique gaze-following patterns are not due to a loss of ability but rather to evolutionary and developmental adaptations to living with humans. While wolves respond more broadly to human gaze, dogs appear to have refined their skills to focus on communicative intent, a trait that strengthens human–dog interaction and cooperation.
Source: Werhahn, G., Virányi, Z., Barrera, G., Sommese, A., & Range, F. (2016). Wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris) differ in following human gaze into distant space but respond similar to their packmates’ gaze. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130(3), 288–298. Published May 30, 2016.
