Object permanence in cats and dogs

Triana, Estrella; Pasnak, Robert

doi:10.3758/bf03212035

Cited by 93 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…That is, they successfully located a treat that moved away from the bottom of the tube after falling from it toward the far end of the box. Although some studies suggest that dogs do not understand invisible displacement problems (CollierBaker et al 2004;, a number of other studies suggest that they do understand these problems (e.g., Triana and Pasnak 1981;Doré 1992, 1993;Watson et al 2001). Perhaps dogs understand invisible displacement when it is achieved via gravity or self-propelled motion but not if it is brought about through the manipulations of human actors in a more artiWcial manner.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Researchers have begun to explore dogs' knowledge of objects in a variety of ways. For example, several past studies successfully excluding the role of olfactory cues have demonstrated that dogs can succeed at invisible displacement problems (e.g., Triana and Pasnak 1981;Doré 1992, 1993;Watson et al 2001; but see CollierBaker et al 2004;. Additionally, dogs do show an initial gravity bias, and yet they (unlike human infants and monkeys) are able to learn to overcome their gravity bias (Osthaus et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

et al. 2009

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Organisms must often make predictions about the trajectories of moving objects. However, often these objects become hidden. To later locate such objects, the organism must maintain a representation of the object in memory and generate an expectation about where it will later appear. We explored adult dogs' knowledge and use of the solidity principle (that one solid object cannot pass through another solid object) by evaluating search behavior. Subjects watched as a treat rolled down an inclined tube into a box. The box either did or did not contain a solid wall dividing it in half. To Wnd the treat, subjects had to modify their search behavior based on the presence or absence of the wall, which either did or did not block the treat's trajectory. Dogs correctly searched the near location when the barrier was present and the far location when the barrier was absent. They displayed this behavior from the Wrst trial, as well as performed correctly when trial types were intermingled. These results suggest that dogs direct their searches in accordance with the solidity principle.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

et al. 2009

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“…Some authors take the view that convincing evidence from a single individual is sufficient to demonstrate that a given cognitive trait is within the capacity of the species [12]. Although true in a trivial sense, this perspective imposes two important limitations on the field.…”

Section: Limitations Of the 'Cognitive Capacity' Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Individual variation in cognitive performance: developmental and evolutionary perspectives

Thornton

Lukas

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

290

239

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Animal cognition experiments frequently reveal striking individual variation but rarely consider its causes and largely ignore its potential consequences. Studies often focus on a subset of high-performing subjects, sometimes viewing evidence from a single individual as sufficient to demonstrate the cognitive capacity of a species. We argue that the emphasis on demonstrating species-level cognitive capacities detracts from the value of individual variation in understanding cognitive development and evolution. We consider developmental and evolutionary interpretations of individual variation and use metaanalyses of data from published studies to examine predictors of individual performance. We show that reliance on small sample sizes precludes robust conclusions about individual abilities as well as inter-and intraspecific differences. We advocate standardization of experimental protocols and pooling of data between laboratories to improve statistical rigour. Our analyses show that cognitive performance is influenced by age, sex, rearing conditions and previous experience. These effects limit the validity of comparative analyses unless developmental histories are taken into account, and complicate attempts to understand how cognitive traits are expressed and selected under natural conditions. Further understanding of cognitive evolution requires efforts to elucidate the heritability of cognitive traits and establish whether elevated cognitive performance confers fitness advantages in nature.

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“…In contrast, testing across a wide range of species has failed to reveal consistent evidence of success on the task in most other animals, including dolphins (Doré, Goulet, & Herman, 1991), numerous species of monkeys (e.g., de Blois et al, 1998;Natale & Antinucci, 1989), cats (e.g., Doré, 1986;Dumas, 1992), hamsters (Thinus-Blanc & Scardigli, 1981), and domestic chickens (É tienne, 1973). However, striking exceptions to this pattern of findings have come from research with dogs (e.g., Gagnon & Doré, 1992, 1993, 1994Triana & Pasnak, 1981) and psittacine birds (e.g., Pepperberg & Funk, 1990;Pepperberg & Kozak, 1986;Pepperberg, Willner, & Gravitz, 1997). In two longitudinal studies, puppies (Gagnon & Doré, 1994) and an African grey parrot (Pepperberg et al, 1997) were shown to progress through a sequence of stages on displacement tasks similar to those of human infants.…”

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confidence: 99%

Do Dogs (Canis familiaris) Understand Invisible Displacement?

Collier-Baker

Davis

Suddendorf

2004

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) perform above chance on invisible displacement tasks despite showing few other signs of possessing the necessary representational abilities. Four experiments investigated how dogs find an object that has been hidden in 1 of 3 opaque boxes. Dogs passed the task under a variety of control conditions, but only if the device used to displace the object ended up adjacent to the target box after the displacement. These results suggest that the search behavior of dogs was guided by simple associative rules rather than mental representation of the object's past trajectory. In contrast, Experiment 5 found that on the same task, 18-and 24-month-old children showed no disparity between trials in which the displacement device was adjacent or nonadjacent to the target box.The invisible displacement task was originally conceived by Piaget (1937Piaget ( /1954) as a measure of toddlers' transition to Stage 6 in his theory of object permanence. In the classic task, the subject sees the experimenter hide a desired object under a displacement device, typically a small opaque container. The experimenter slides the displacement device under one of several hiding boxes, surreptitiously deposits the object beneath this box, and shows the subject that the displacement device is now empty. To find the object, the subject cannot rely on perceptual information alone but rather must infer the object's location by mentally representing its past trajectory (e.g., Call, 2001). The task is thus thought to provide evidence of representational thought: the ability to entertain representations of objects or events that cannot be directly perceived.As such, Piaget's invisible displacement task continues to feature strongly in both developmental and comparative research and theory. In Perner's (1991) theory of representational development, for example, passing the invisible displacement task is one of several markers of the emergence of a capacity for secondary representation. Perner suggests that prior to the middle of their 2nd year, infants have access only to primary representations; that is, they maintain a direct model of reality that is continually updated with incoming perceptual information. Passing the invisible displacement task indicates that the child can go beyond a single updating model to entertain multiple models of the world. That is, the child is able to hold in mind a model of the current world (primary representation: displacement device empty) as well as a model of the past world (secondary representation: displacement device with object under large box). By collating these two models the child can infer the likely location of the surreptitiously displaced object. Children typically begin passing the invisible displacement task at approximately 18 -24 months of age (e.g., Kramer, Hill, & Cohen, 1975;Piaget, 1937Piaget, /1954. Perner (1991) argues that several other abilities emerging in the 2nd year, such as mirror self-recognition and pretend play, also involve secondary representations. At le...

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Object permanence in cats and dogs

Cited by 93 publications

References 12 publications

Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

Domesticated dogs’ (Canis familiaris) use of the solidity principle

Individual variation in cognitive performance: developmental and evolutionary perspectives

Do Dogs (Canis familiaris) Understand Invisible Displacement?

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