Experimental Design
To determine causality, researchers gave this hormone to dogs intranasally and measured its effect on their gaze behavior.
What is oxytocin?
This region of the brain produces the majority of oxytocin.
What is the hypothalamus?
In dogs, significantly higher levels of oxytocin were correlated with this type of gaze.
What is long-gaze?
This system suggests that dogs yield interesting implications of domestication by humans.
What is the coopting social cognitive system?
The oxytocin-gaze positive loop suggests that this process has influenced human-dog relationships over generations.
What is coevolution?
Nagasawa compared these two types of animals to determine differences in gaze-induced oxytocin release.
In the study, dog owners' oxytocin levels increased following this behavioral interaction with their dogs.
What is gazing?
This species does not engage in the same gazing behaviors as dogs.
What are wolves?
This significant behavioral distinction between dogs and wolves suggests that domestication influenced social communication with humans.
What is increased mutual gazing?
The study proposes that human-dog bonds formed during domestication by reinforcing oxytocin release via this social cue.
What is mutual gazing?
This physiological measurement was used to monitor oxytocin levels in both dogs and their owners.
What is the urinary oxytocin concentration?
This gland secretes oxytocin into the bloodstream after it is produced in the hypothalamus.
What is the posterior pituitary gland?
The study suggests that dog gazing behavior is similar to how human infants interact with their caregivers.
What is eye contact?
In the study, this physiological response was only observed in dog owners, not wolf owners, after social interactions.
What is elevated urinary oxytocin?
The mutual reinforcement of oxytocin release between humans and dogs fosters the theory that domestication was driven by socially advantageous selection.
What is natural selection for social bonds?
This variable was manipulated to investigated its role in human-dog bonding through oxytocin release.
What is the duration and frequency of mutual gaze?
Oxytocin is known to play an important role in this type of human social bond, so urine samples from these two groups were tested in 30 minute increments.
What is long gaze or short gaze?
Gazing is thought to help communicate this social concept, which is important for bonding.
What is attachment?
Mutual gaze in infants elicits this type of behavior.
What is healthy attachment?
Dogs have adapted to bond with humans by engaging common modes of social attachment, utilizing mechanisms that evolved specifically for this interaction.
What is Parent-Child Bonding?
Researchers used this method to investigate the effect of gazing behavior on oxytocin levels in both species.
How are oxytocin levels in urine measured before and after an interaction?
Beyond bonding, oxytocin is also involved in these types of social behaviors.
What are social recognition and affiliative behavior?
This term describes how dogs' gazes elicit a physiological response in humans, which affects the dog's oxytocin levels.
What is the oxytocin-gaze positive loop?
Wolves, unlike dogs, rely heavily on this form of communication for social interactions.
What is body language and vocalization?
The study suggests that domesticated dogs may have evolved to use this human neurochemical system to strengthen their bonds with their owners.
What is the oxytocin system?