First impressions: A preliminary study of domestic dog puppies’ responses to verbal cues issued by an artificial agent

Domestic pet dog puppies (hereafter puppies) typically co-exist and develop within a technology-rich environment, spending a large amount of time in the home. An audio/ food dispensing automated device (an artificial agent, hereafter agent) was evaluated for enrichment potential. The agent issued pre-recorded owner-spoken verbal cues to puppies and food rewards for their correct behavioural responses. Puppies’ latencies to look up at the agent after it spoke their name, the word ‘hi’, and dispensed food rewards, and their abilities to respond correctly to its cues were measured. Welfare during interaction was examined using quantitative continuous behaviour sampling. In the first of two conditions, puppies (n = 8) were observed responding to verbal cues issued by the agent, with researcher and owner present (A+RO). The agent was remotely triggered to call each puppy by name and issue the cues ‘sit’ and ‘down’ in a repeated, randomised order totalling eight cues per puppy. In a baseline condition for comparison (owner, with researcher and agent present) (O+RA) the owner replaced the agent’s role. Attentional focus (looking up at the agent with direct eye contact) was achieved following the agent speaking the puppies’ names, the word ‘hi’ and dispensing food rewards (M = 33 sec). In the subsequent two test conditions, no significant difference in puppies’ correct first choice behavioural responses to cues issued by the agent versus owner was found (p = 0.609). Significantly longer response latencies to cues in the agent versus owner condition were revealed (p = 0.001). No significant differences were found in state behaviours ‘looking up’ (p = 0.069), ‘cued response behaviour’ (p = 0.12), ‘eating food rewards’ (p = 0.263) and ‘close proximity post-test’ (p = 0.612) between conditions. A significant difference was found between the two conditions for ‘tail wag bout’, greatest in O+RA (p = 0.028). Puppies responded correctly to the agent’s cues during their first exposure to this novel paradigm and indicators of motivation to interact were identified throughout testing.