Social looking in the domestic dog

The study of dog social cognition is relatively recent and is rapidly developing, providing an interesting and multi-faceted picture of our \u2018\u2018best friend\u2019s\u2019\u2019 sociocognitive abilities. In particular, since Mikl\uf3si et al.\u2019s (2003)seminal work \u2018\u2018A simple reason for a big difference: wolves do not look back at humans, but dogs do\u2019\u2019, there has been a surge of interest in the area of dog\u2013human communication. In the current chapter we focus on dogs\u2019 comprehension of the human gaze and their ability to use human-directed-gazing as a communicative tool. We first review studies on the social significance of human eye contact for dogs, their understanding of eyes as indicators of attention, and their ability to take another\u2019s visual perspective into account. We also consider dogs\u2019 understanding of human eye-gaze as a communicative act, in terms of its potentially referential nature and as an ostensive cue signalling the communicative intent of the actor. We then move on to review studies on dogs\u2019 human-directed gazing behaviour, discussing whether it may be considered part of an intentional and referential communicative act, what the underlying motivations and contexts in which this behaviour is exhibited may be, and what variables affect its occurrence. Where open questions remains, we outline current debates and highlight potential directions for future research