Studies suggest that being mimicked can positively affect human social interactions, not only in adults but also in children and even in individuals with atypical social competences. Outside of the human species, however, little is still known about this so-called ‘social glue function’ of mimicry; with only two studies—both on primates—testing whether other animals can show increased affiliation towards humans who mimic them. The present paper provides two pioneer studies on whether dogs—a domesticated species strongly attached to humans—show increased preference toward humans who display matching behaviour (walking). Results from both studies, including several tests, evidenced no preference of dogs for the human experimenter who matched the dogs’ walk. Methodological issues are discussed and a number of new routes of experimentation are proposed that we hope will prove valuable for future studies.

中文翻译：

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尝试测试狗（Canis associateis）是否对与其行为相匹配的人类表现出更多的偏好

研究表明，被模仿可以对人类的社交互动产生积极影响，不仅在成年人中，而且在儿童中，甚至在具有非典型社交能力的个人中。然而，在人类之外，人们对模仿的这种所谓的“社会粘合功能”知之甚少。只有两项研究——都是针对灵长类动物——测试其他动物是否会增加对模仿它们的人类的亲近感。本论文提供了两项关于狗——一种与人类密切相关的驯养物种——是否对表现出匹配行为（步行）的人类表现出越来越多的偏好的先驱研究。两项研究的结果，包括几项测试，都证明狗不偏爱与狗走路相匹配的人类实验者。