# Not the presence but the timing of acoustic signals influence dogs’ behaviour toward an artificial agent

## TL;DR

Dogs respond more to the timing of sounds from an artificial agent than just the presence of sounds, affecting their behavior in tasks.

## Contribution

The study reveals that temporal synchronicity of sound and behavior, not just sound presence, influences dog behavior.

## Key findings

- Dogs in the Congruent group gazed at the agent later during problem-solving.
- The Congruent group's choices in the Two-way choice task were at chance level.
- No significant difference was found between the Silent and Incongruent groups.

## Abstract

Some features of communicative signals may only direct the attention of the receiver to the signaller, and others may convey specific aspects of the message. Dogs rapidly engage in complex interactions with artificial agents allowing to test whether auditory cues of these agents can only serve as attention-getting cues or they can also convey context-specific message. Dogs encountered the agent first when it helped them to obtain an unreachable reward (Problem-solving); the agent was either (a) silent, or it emitted sound (b) at specific time intervals (Incongruent), or (c) congruently with its interactive behaviours (Congruent). Then, dogs could obtain a reward by following the agent’s indication between two hiding places (Two-way choice). Dogs in all groups displayed communicative behaviour toward the agent. However, the Congruent group started to gaze at the agent later at the beginning of the Problem-solving, and their choice was at chance level in the Two-way choice. No difference was found between the Silent and Incongruent groups. Thus, not the attention-getting aspect of the sound, but the temporal synchronicity of the sound and specific behaviour influenced dogs’ behaviour.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-01880-9.