Dog-Human Relationship Affects Problem Solving Behavior in the Dog

Topál, József; Miklósi, Ádám; Csányi, Vilmos

doi:10.2752/089279397787000987

Cited by 158 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Accordingly, it can be speculated that the restricted manifestation of dogs' reasoning abilities is not due to the effect of domestication in the reduction of problemsolving abilities (Frank 1980) but it is being masked by bias in following social cues. This would be in line with the dependency argument made by Topál et al (1997).…”

Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fsupporting

confidence: 75%

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

et al. 2007

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Three experiments were designed to test whether adult pet dogs are able to show inferential reasoning when searching for their toy in a series of two-way choice tasks. The experimenter placed a toy under one of two identical containers and then provided some information by manipulating the covers: either both containers were lifted or just the empty or baited one. There were other trials when the experimenter not only revealed the corresponding container but manipulated also the other one without showing its content. In the second experiment the same conditions were used except that the content of the containers was revealed by strings without any human manipulation. Results of the two studies show that dogs are able to use inferential reasoning by exclusion (i.e. they can find the hidden toy if they have seen where the toy was missing). However, dogs were able to solve the reasoning task only when they could not rely on social-communicative cues (directional gesture and gaze cues) or could not use any other simple discriminative stimuli (movement of a container) for making decisions. This suggests that dogs are often prevented from showing reasoning abilities by pre-existing biases for social or movement cues. Results of the third experiment also support the primary importance of social cueing because in another object-choice task, individuals preferred to choose the 'socially marked' container (touching, gaze alternation) to the remotely moved one when they had no visual information about the location of the toy. Keywords: cognition; decision by exclusion; deduction; dog; reasoning Despite the wide range of studies based on human and animal cognition published in the past decades, the evolutionary emergence of reasoning abilities including different types of logical reasoning in humans continues to be a puzzle for cognitive science (Wright 2001). The fundamental question is whether an observed problemsolving behaviour is a result of gradual development in performance due to learning processes or is a sudden solution emerging from mental reorganization of problem elements (i.e. insight: Köhler 1925). In distinguishing between learning and reasoning, many assume that even though the more parsimonious learning processes can never be fully excluded (Heyes 1993), reasoning can be presumed if the subject shows an 'insightful solution' immediately (i.e. shows adequate behaviour without explicit training) in the first few trials (Premack 1995).To test for reasoning one may present a problem and provide sufficient but indirect information to solve it. One way to study the reasoning abilities is the Piagetian object permanence paradigm. In the invisible displacement task, no direct cues specify that the desired reward has moved behind the screen (i.e. the subject does not witness the reward being dropped). The subject must infer, upon seeing the empty container, that the object has been transferred. Previous studies with several species showed that some primates (e.g. orang-utans, Pongo pygmaeus: de Blois et al. 1998; o...

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Section: U N C O R R E C T E D P R O O Fsupporting

confidence: 75%

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

et al. 2007

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“…The short duration of the dogs' concentration on the food thus does not seem to reflect that the animals are disorganised but rather that they lost interest. Further, Topál et al (1997) found that dogs' poor problemsolving performance was less dependent on their cognitive abilities than on their dependent relationship with the owner. We could assume that the dogs' relationship with the owner masked any association between the questionnaire items of Trainability and their performance in the test.…”

Section: Association Between Owners' Subjective Rating and Behaviour mentioning

confidence: 99%

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Mirkó

Dóka

Miklósi

2013

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

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In this paper our first aim was to investigate association between behaviour coding based on a test battery called the FIDO Personality test for dogs (Canis familiaris) and a subjective rating given by dog owners. For the latter we asked dog owners to fill in the Dog Personality Questionnaire (DPQ) which established four personality traits for dogs: Strangerdirected Sociability, Activity, Aggressiveness and Trainability. The FIDO Personality test consists of a series of subtests in which we utilised an ethogram and measured different aspects of dog behaviour. Prior to this study we established a set of possible associations between the behavioural and the questionnaire variables.With regard to Trainability no correlation could be detected between any of the questionnaire variables and the hypothetically corresponding test battery variables. In the case of Stranger-directed Sociability, we revealed correlation between owners' reports and the dogs' behaviour during the test stuation. Those dogs which were reported 'initiative' and 'not mistrustful with unfamiliar humans' approached the experimenter with shorter latency (r = -0.25, p < 0.01; r = 0.24, p < 0.01) and played more with her than those who were scored lower on these questionnaire items (r = -0.27, p < 0.01). For the factor Activity, no correlation was found between the owners' report and the behaviour of dogs displayed in the Spontaneous activity phase of the test battery. Association was revealed between the owners' report regarding the dogs' preference for ball games and playing and their behaviour in the corresponding subtest. Those dogs which were reported to like ball games and like playing with the owner played with the ball as well as with a tug more in the test situation than those which were scored lower on the questionnaire variable 'likes fetching balls'(r = 0.47, p < 0.001; r = 0.25, p < 0.01). As regards the factor Aggressiveness, the questionnaire variable 'shows a tendency to bark' correlated with the dogs' aggressive reactions (growl, bite, attack) (r = 0.25, p < 0.01) in the Bone take-away subtest and with the 'latency of getting the DNA sample' (r = 0.30, p < 0.001) in the Getting DNA sample subtest. The results show that despite of the investigated associations there is a need for more effort to refine both questionnaire-based and behaviour-based assessment of dog personality.The second aim of our experiments was to reveal whether owner ratings on the above personality factors converged with the ratings of independent groups of observers based on the video recordings of the FIDO Personality test. First, in the case of each factor, we compared the degrees of ratings given by the owners and by the three rater groups with different levels of hands-on experience with dogs. We found no difference in the case of Stranger-directed Sociability, Activity and Trainability (F(3,128)=1.17, p=0.17; F(3,128)=0.99, p=0.4; F(3,128)=1.6, p=0.18 respectively) but there was a significant variability in judging Aggressiveness (F(3,128)=2.86, p=0...

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“…Further on, instead of reporting only their success, two behavioural aspects were examined that had already been documented to be important in dog-human communication. These are the dogs' sensitivity to human gestural cues when locating hidden food (Soproni et al 2001), and their tendency to look at humans in problem situations (Topál et al 1997;Miklósi et al 2000;Pongrácz et al 2001;Miklósi et al 2003;Gácsi et al 2005). Accordingly, dogs and wolves were compared in both of these aspects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris)

et al. 2008

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Dogs have a remarkable skill to use humangiven cues in object-choice tasks, but little is known to what extent their closest wild-living relative, the wolf can achieve this performance. In Study 1, we compared wolf and dog pups hand-reared individually and pet dogs of the same age in their readiness to form eye-contact with a human experimenter in an object-choice task and to follow her pointing gesture. The results showed that dogs already at 4 months of age use momentary distal pointing to Wnd hidden food even without intensive early socialization. Wolf pups, on the contrary, do not attend to this subtle pointing. Accordingly in Studies 2 and 3, these wolves were tested longitudinally with this and four other (easier) human-given cues. This revealed that wolves socialized at a comparable level to dogs are able to use simple humangiven cues spontaneously if the human's hand is close to the baited container (e.g. touching, proximal pointing). Study 4 showed that wolves can follow also momentary distal pointing similarly to dogs if they have received extensive formal training. Comparing the wolves to naïve pet dogs of the same age revealed that during several months of formal training wolves can reach the level of dogs in their success of following momentary distal pointing in parallel with improving their readiness to form eyecontact with a human experimenter. We assume that the high variability in the wolves' communicative behaviour might have provided a basis for selection during the course of domestication of the dog.

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Dog-Human Relationship Affects Problem Solving Behavior in the Dog

Cited by 158 publications

References 34 publications

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use

Association between subjective rating and behaviour coding and the role of experience in making video assessments on the personality of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris)

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