Search behavior in various breeds of adult dogs (Canis familiaris): Object permanence and olfactory cues.

Abstract

Human analog tests of object permanence were administered to various breeds of adult dogs (Canis familiaris). Experiment 1 showed that the performance of terriers, sporting, and working dogs did not differ. Dogs succeeded in solving invisible displacement problems, but performance was lower than in visible displacement tests. Familiarity with the task had some influence because invisible displacement tests were more successful if they were preceded by visible displacement tests. In Experiment 2, odor cues from the target object and the hiding screens were available or were masked. Results confirmed that success was lower in invisible than in visible displacement tests and that these problems were solved on the basis of representation of visual information rather than on the basis of olfactory cues or of local rule learning. Dogs are compared with other species that display Stage 6 object permanence.

Identifying suitable detection dogs

“…Trainability is not the equivalent of an unguided problem-solving ability, thereby demonstrating that trainability isn't necessarily related to intelligence (Frank and Frank, 1985). This perception of variation amongst dogs' trainability and intelligence is remarkable, considering the minimal evidence of differences in cognitive abilities between breeds (Gagnon and Doré, 1992;Pongrácz et al, 2005).…”

Object Permanence in Common Marmosets (Callithrix jacchus).

“…In Group 2, the order of tests was reversed (i.e., Tests 6 -9 before Tests 1-5). Counterbalancing the order of tests was based on a statement from Gagnon and Doré (1992), in which invisible displacement tests in dogs were more successful if they were preceded by visible displacement tests. If this is also true for marmosets, Group 1 should outperform Group 2.…”

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

“…The special importance of human manipulation even against other (asocial) discriminative cues is supported by the results of the third study showing that dogs preferably rely on humangiven cues versus remotely controlled movements of a target place. This is one of the few studies giving experimental evidence for inferential reasoning in dogs (Gagnon & Doré 1992, 1993Kaminski et al 2004), contrary to those mainly object permanence studies which reported that dogs, unlike apes, solve the single invisible task not by inferring the location of the reward but by using simple local rules (Watson et al 2001;Collier-Baker et al 2004. Collier-Baker et al (2004) repeated the experiment of Gagnon and Doré (1992) with several control tests and reported that dogs base their search behaviour on a simple adjacency rule (searching at a box adjacent to the displacement device which originally contained the desired reward) rather than on mentally reconstructing the past trajectory of an object in the invisible displacement task.…”

“…Previous studies with several species showed that some primates (e.g. orang-utans, Pongo pygmaeus: de Blois et al 1998;orang-utans: Call 2001;chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes: Wood et al 1980;cottontop tamarins, Saguinus oedipus: Neiworth et al 2003), magpies, Pica pica (Pollok et al 2000), grey parrots, Psittacus erithacus (Pepperberg et al 1997) and dogs, Canis familiaris (Gagnon & Doré 1992, 1993 were able to solve the single invisible displacement tasks. However, it is doubtful whether dogs really used inferential reasoning to find the reward or whether they solve the problem by using local rules (Watson et al 2001;Collier-Baker et al 2004.…”