Domestication has long been thought to enhance dogs’ social skills with humans, but whether these abilities are derived from wolves or uniquely developed remains debated. To address this, Range & Virányi (2013) tested juvenile wolves and dogs raised under identical conditions in a local enhancement task.
The results showed that both species benefitted from demonstrations, whether performed by humans or conspecifics, compared to no-demonstration controls. This suggests that social learning is not exclusive to dogs but is also present in wolves.
However, species-specific differences emerged. Dogs distinguished between genuine and pretend demonstrations, regardless of whether the demonstrator was a human or a dog. In contrast, wolves only made this distinction with human demonstrators. The authors suggested that wolves paid closer attention to behavioral details of conspecific models, but their motivation waned when demonstrator dogs showed little interest in the food reward.
These findings highlight that domestication may not have created new social learning abilities in dogs but likely refined their responsiveness to human cues. A more fine-grained analysis of wolf–dog differences is needed to fully understand how domestication shaped canine cognition.
Source: Range, F., & Virányi, Z. (2013). Social learning from humans or conspecifics: differences and similarities between wolves and dogs. Frontiers in Psychology, 4. References: 54. Citations: 65.
