When confronted with a difficult or impossible problem, dogs tend to look back at humans and try to catch their attention, instead of trying to solve it themselves. This behavior has been interpreted as a help request, but it is debated whether dogs take into account prior experiences with people when selecting whom to turn to. In the present study, dogs were trained to discriminate between a generous experimenter who gave them food and a selfish one that took it away. After assessing that they had established a preference for the generous one, we exposed them to an unsolvable task in which food was locked inside a container, while the experimenters stood on each side of the apparatus. During this task, we measured their behaviors towards each experimenter. Results showed that dogs did not first turn to the generous experimenter. However, they gazed more at the generous experimenter during the task, which implies that they did, to some degree, selectively ask for help based on previous interactions. Moreover, they gazed more and spent significantly more time in contact with the female experimenter when she was generous, suggesting a possible synergic effect of the experimenters' ID (male/female) and their attitude (generous/selfish). All in all, these results suggest that, to some extent, dogs are able to use the information from previous interactions with unknown humans to selectively ask for help.

中文翻译：

---

寻求帮助：狗是否考虑到与人的过往经历？

当遇到困难或不可能解决的问题时，狗往往会回头看人并试图引起他们的注意，而不是试图自己解决它。这种行为已被解释为帮助请求，但在犬只选择向谁求助时，是否考虑了与人的过往经历引起了争议。在本研究中，对狗进行了训练，以区分提供食物的慷慨实验者和带走食物的自私实验者。在评估他们对大方食品的偏爱后，我们将他们暴露在一项无法解决的任务中，将食物锁在容器内，而实验人员则站在设备的两侧。在执行此任务期间，我们测量了他们对每个实验者的行为。结果表明，狗没有首先转向慷慨的实验者。然而，在任务执行期间，他们更多地注视着慷慨的实验者，这意味着他们在一定程度上确实根据先前的互动有选择地寻求帮助。此外，当女性实验者慷慨时，他们凝视得更多，并花费大量时间与女性实验者接触，这表明实验者ID（男性/女性）和他们的态度（慷慨/自私）可能产生协同作用。总而言之，这些结果表明，在某种程度上，狗能够利用先前与未知人类的互动中的信息来选择性地寻求帮助。表明实验者ID（男性/女性）和他们的态度（慷慨/自私）可能产生协同作用。总而言之，这些结果表明，在某种程度上，狗能够利用先前与未知人类的互动中的信息来选择性地寻求帮助。表明实验者ID（男性/女性）和他们的态度（慷慨/自私）可能产生协同作用。总而言之，这些结果表明，在某种程度上，狗能够利用先前与未知人类的互动中的信息来选择性地寻求帮助。