Keeping A Close Eye: Dogs, Social Referencing, And Evolution
Does your dog watch you closely? A new experiment shows how dogs may match our movements and, in some breeds more than others, gaze at us for information, writes anthropologist Barbara J. King.
When humans talk to each other or walk alongside each other, we tend to match each other's subtle movements.
Called interpersonal movement synchrony in the science literature and mirroring in the popular media, it's an often-unconscious process during which we match our gestures and pace to that of our social partner of the moment.
Writing in the March issue of the journal , Charlotte Duranton, Thierry Bedossa, and Florence Gaunet note that this process is "evolutionarily adaptive" for us: "It contributes to
