Action observation

Another crucial socio-cognitive skill is the ability to understand and predict another individual’s behaviour. In humans similar brain regions are active both when they perform or observe an action. Dogs are excellent at understanding human bodily cues and imitating actions of humans or conspecifics, but does their brain process these actions similar to humans? In this project, we compare the neural bases of action observation in dogs and humans to study a potential convergent evolution and their role for social cognition.