All posts tagged Dogs

Canine Comprehension of Complex Communications

No question about it, canines are smart and adaptable. In recent posts, we’ve featured a dingo who cleverly figured out how to use a table as a tool enabling him to reach tempting food, described research suggesting that dogs may be so in tune with our feelings that they can catch yawning bouts from us, highlighted evidence that humans and dogs may be undergoing cognitive convergent evolution with each other based on our close social relationships over the millennia, and even noted a study pointing to canine self-awareness based on their recognition of their own, er, yellow snow.

Also, dog owners frequently describe how smart their cold-nosed friends are, how they know the words for large numbers of toys and other objects, and how they understand and sometimes obey numerous commands. (Good dog!) However, while there have been many studies investigating the linguistic abilities of primates, cetaceans, parrots and certain other species, there has been surprising little formal research into the verbal comprehension of dogs. Dogs have been tested for their understanding of specific words and commands, but there has been an absence of research into whether they can understand and distinguish the constituent parts of complex sentences that refer both to objects (e.g., “ball,” “stick” or “newspaper”) and to actions (e.g., “fetch,” “roll over,” or “point”).

Until recently, that is.

Chasing Down Linguistic Meaning

First, in 2011, John Pilley and Alliston Reid published a paper in Behavioural Processes detailing a variety of word comprehension tests that they had given to Chaser, a rock star border collie famous for knowing the names of over 1,000 objects.

In one of these experiments, Pilley and Reid tested whether Chaser could independently understand the meanings of verbs and nouns. In this test, Chaser was asked to respond appropriately when three different commands (take, paw, and nose) were randomly associated with three different stuffed cloth toys (Lips, a toy resembling human lips; ABC, a cloth cube with those letters written on its side; and Lamb, a stuffed lamb) in 14 independent trials using a double-blind procedure. Chaser was familiar with the commands, but none of the three toys had ever been paired with any of the commands prior to the experiment.

The three toys were lined up on a soft pad in front of a one-meter high cloth barrier. During the trials, neither Chaser nor the experimenter could see each other, as the experimenter knelt on one side of the barrier, with Chaser hanging out with the toys on the other side. The experimenter, who had been given a toy and command combination generated with a random number table, gave Chaser his instructions, while a confederate sat to the side where she could see Chaser perform and signal to the experimenter with a hand wave when the trial was over. Here’s a picture of the setup, taken before the experimenter retreated to the other side of the barrier to commence the trial (note that the confederate’s legs are visible to the right of the picture):

The tests were videotaped with sound recording, with three independent raters (not the experimenter or the confederate) scoring whether Chaser chose the correct toy and performed the correct command. Each rater first watched the videotape with the sound turned off (so he/she wouldn’t know which instructions had been given to Chaser), and recorded which command was actually executed towards which toy. After rating all 14 trials, the rater then watched each trial again with the sound turned on in order to assess whether Chaser’s behavior accurately matched the instructions given by the experimenter.

How did Chaser do? Perfectly.

There was absolutely no disagreement among the raters – each judged Chaser to be 100% accurate across the 14 trials, performing the correct command to the correct toy as instructed. As Pilley and Reid put it:

These results clearly support the conclusion that Chaser understood reference – that the verbal noun of an object referred to a particular object with distinct physical features independent of actions directed toward that object.

Comprehending Sentences

Then, earlier this month, Daniel Ramos and Cesar Ades of the University of São Paulo published a study in PLoS One that extended the Chaser research.

In their study, Ramos and Ades tested Sofia, a female mongrel dog, on two-item requests over a two year period, starting when she was a two-month old puppy. The testing consisted of eight progressive phases, during which Sofia first learned some basic vocabulary and then gradually faced increasingly complex tests of her comprehension abilities. The specific phases were as follows:

  1. Learn the names for four objects (ball, key, bottle and stick) and two requests (point or fetch).
  2. When presented with two objects, approach the correct object on request, or perform the correct action upon request.
  3. Perform object and action requests in sequence – that is, first approach the proper object after being given an initial “object request” and then, after being given an “action request,” perform the correct action on the object.
  4. Perform single multi-part requests – that is, after being given a compound request (e.g., ball fetch, ball point, key fetch, key point, bottle fetch and stick point), approach the correct object and perform the correct action.
  5. To eliminate the possibility of inadvertent cues from the experimenter, perform the same tests as in phase 4 but with the following control variations: (1) experimenter wearing sun-glasses, (2) experimenter with mouth covered by a cloth band, (3) research assistant absent from the room, (4) unfamiliar person as experimenter, (5) testing in an unfamiliar room, (6) test objects scattered, distant from one another, and (7) new objects of the same category (new balls, keys, etc.) offered.
  6. Perform reversed multi-part requests – that is, in response to compound requests in which the word order has been switched from object-action to action-object (e.g., fetch ball, point ball, fetch key, point key, fetch bottle and point stick), approach the correct object and perform the correct action just as in phase 4.
  7. Perform multi-part requests with a new, previously-untested object, a teddy bear.
  8. Perform multi-part requests with new combination object-action pairs (stick fetch and bottle point) that had not been used at all during prior training or tests.

And how did Sofia do? Well, she wasn’t perfect like Chaser, but she was pretty impressive. Her success rate was significantly above chance in all phases except for the final one, in which she had only 3 out of 10 correct responses for both the stick fetch and the bottle point requests. Notwithstanding this one area of underperformance, Ramos and Ades concluded:

Our results suggest that dogs share with “linguistic” animals the capacity to encode in memory at least two heterogeneous items of information to be used in subsequent directed performance, a capacity which, although far from being “an infinite use of finite means” as human grammars are, may have comparative relevance as a forerunner to syntactical functioning.

Now, I know what you are saying. Yes, your dog can do that too. I’m aware that she consistently beats you and your friends at poker, and I’ve seen the video where she plays charades while riding around your house on a Roomba.

You see, that’s actually the issue. Dogs are incredibly good at picking up human signals, which is why carefully-designed experiments are important in ruling out the “Clever Hans” effect (named after a horse who, more than a century ago, amazed crowds with his apparent mathematic abilities, but who was ultimately found to be picking up on involuntary body language cues from his trainer).

By eliminating visual contact between Chaser, Sofia and the experimenters and by adding controls such as having unfamiliar persons issue requests and moving around the objects, the researchers ensured that the dogs had to rely exclusively on words rather than on inadvertent human signals or other contextual clues. By changing the size, shape and color of the requested objects and introducing a new object (the teddy bear), the researchers were able to test whether Sofia was able to generalize and apply concepts to new objects in the same category. By reversing word order and thereby changing the acoustics of compound requests, the researchers were able to rule out the possibility that Sofia was performing based on memorizing the sound properties of requests rather than actually understanding the individual words comprising the requests.

So, you were right all along – your dog really does understand you. The problem is everyone else.

_____

ResearchBlogging.orgPilley, J., & Reid, A. (2011). Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents Behavioural Processes, 86 (2), 184-195 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2010.11.007.

Ramos, D., & Ades, C. (2012). Two-Item Sentence Comprehension by a Dog (Canis familiaris) PLoS ONE, 7 (2) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029689.

6 Comments
by paulfnorris on February 21, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Language, Mammals
Tagged , ,

Posted by paulfnorris on February 21, 2012

https://animalwise.org/2012/02/21/canine-comprehension-of-complex-communications/

A Yawning Divide? Contagious Yawning and Empathy in Animals

A group of red-footed tortoises ran away (rather slowly) with the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in physiology1, bringing to center stage the potential link between contagious yawning and empathy in animals. While the Ig Nobels are a tongue-in-cheek spoof of the Nobel Prizes, their purpose is not frivolous – they “honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.” Here’s the story of the tortoises’ claim to fame and what we know about contagious yawning in animals.

Tortoise yawning? I don’t think so!

It turns out that the underlying cause of contagious yawning has been something of a puzzle – why is it that when you see someone else yawn (or even hear a yawn or just think about yawning), you sometimes are overcome with the urge to yawn yourself? The most common hypotheses are that contagious yawning results either from empathy or from non-conscious social mimicry, the tendency to adopt a social partner’s postures, gestures and mannerisms. An alternative hypothesis, however, is that it may simply reflect a fixed action pattern, an innate or instinctual response to a stimulus (a triggering yawn).

No, really, go on - I'm listening... (photo: Peter Baumber)

And that’s where the red-footed tortoises lumber into the picture. Lead researcher Anna Wilkinson and her colleagues figured the tortoises would offer a good way of testing the fixed action pattern hypothesis, since they are known to yawn and respond to social stimuli, but are not believed to exhibit empathy or engage in non-conscious social mimicry.

The researchers worked very hard to induce contagious tortoise yawning, spending six months training one of them (Alexander, if you’re curious) to yawn whenever he saw a red square-shaped symbol, and then devising a series of tests to see whether six “observer” tortoises would yawn after seeing Alexander yawn. Initially, the observers were presented with three scenarios: one in which they watched Alexander giving one of his patented yawns, another in which they watched a non-yawning tortoise (Alexander?), and a third in which they simply viewed Alexander’s red square. A second experiment mirrored the first, except this time the observers watched Alexander yawn multiple times. Finally, they went to the movies, seeing clips of real tortoise yawns, fake yawns and an empty background.

And the results? Nothing, nada, zilch. The tortoises simply didn’t yawn more frequently after seeing another tortoise yawn; no contagious yawning whatsoever. This spectacular display of non-yawning in tortoises led the researchers to “suggest that contagious yawning is not simply the result of a fixed action pattern and releaser stimulus …. We suggest that contagious yawning may be controlled through social processes such as nonconscious mimicry or empathy….” Naturally, international acclaim ensued.

Apes and Monkeys and Dogs, Oh My!

So, which animals do demonstrate contagious yawning? Well, as with other cognitive realms, our views of contagious yawning have followed “AnimalWise’s Rule”: first we believed it to be an exclusively human behavior, then we observed it in chimpanzees, then we saw it in monkeys, next in dogs, now … hmm … Taste it, fur-face, I have opposable thumbs!  Ok, I lied, that’s not a real rule; I just made it up.

Here’s a run-down on what we actually know about contagious yawning in non-humans:

Chimpanzees

The phenomenon was first demonstrated in chimpanzees in 2004 when a research team led by James Anderson of the University of Stirling reported2 on a small study in which six adult female chimps watched video scenes of other chimps who were either yawning naturally or, alternatively, displaying open-mouthed facial expressions that weren’t yawns. Two of the observers (33%) yawned significantly more often in response to the yawn videos and none of them yawned more frequently in response to the open-mouth control videos, a response rate only slightly lower than that in humans watching comparable videos. In 2009, Matthew Campbell and colleagues from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (YNPRC) expanded on these findings, reporting3 that, much like humans responding to on-screen yawns by Pixar characters, a group of 24 chimps yawned significantly more often after watching 3D computer animations of yawning chimps than after watching animations of chimps displaying non-yawn mouth movements. Finally, Matthew Campbell and Frans de Waal of the YNPRC reported4 this year on an experiment lending empirical support to the hypothesis that contagious yawning stems from empathy. Campbell and de Waal found that, consistent with studies showing that humans demonstrate greater empathy towards others they view as being similar, chimps yawned significantly more frequently in response to videos of familiar chimps yawning than they did to either videos of unfamiliar chimps yawning or videos of chimps (regardless of familiarity) who were at rest.

…

Monkeys

The first study supporting contagious yawning in non-ape primates was published5 in 2006 by University of Stirling researchers Annika Paukner and James Anderson, who had 22 stumptail macaques watch video clips of other macaques either yawning or making non-yawn facial movements. Although the macaques yawned significantly more in response to yawn tapes than to non-yawn tapes, the researchers noted that the macaques engaged in more self-directed scratching (a tension-relieving behavior) while watching the yawn tapes, making it difficult to differentiate between actual contagious yawning and the release of stress perhaps brought on by the yawn tapes. The case for non-hominid contagious yawning was bolstered in 2009, though, when Elisabetta Palagi of Pisa University and her colleagues published6 a study in which they recorded and reviewed over 3,200 baboon yawning displays (all occurring in the absence of stressful events or behavior). They not only found clear evidence of contagious yawning among adult baboons, but also discovered that females (but not males) tended to match the type of yawning display (baboons make different facial expressions when yawning) that had triggered their own yawn, and that the degree of contagiousness correlated with social closeness, thus supporting an empathy-basis for yawn contagion and anticipating the results of 2011 chimpanzee experiment described above.

Dogs

Lastly, in 2008 Ramiro Joly-Macheroni and colleagues from the University of London reported7 on an experimental first on multiple fronts: yawn contagion in a non-primate species and the first demonstration of possible contagious yawning across different species. In their study, 29 dogs observed an unfamiliar human either yawning or making non-yawning mouth movements, with 21 dogs yawning in response to the yawning human and not one yawning in response to the human who displayed the non-yawning control behavior.

Future Directions

I know that if the Internet were allowed to vote, researchers would spend much of their waking hours considering YouTube videos of impossibly cute kittens yawning, but I want to take this opportunity to call for a full and serious investigation into the concerning link between contagious duck wing flapping and odd French Canadian music:

…

_____

ResearchBlogging.org1Wilkinson, A., Sebanz, N., Mandl, I., & Huber, L. (2011). No evidence of contagious yawning in the red-footed tortoise Geochelone carbonaria. Current Zoology, 57(4), 477-484.

2Anderson, J., Myowa-Yamakoshi, M., & Matsuzawa, T. (2004). Contagious yawning in chimpanzees Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 271 (Suppl_6) DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2004.0224.

3Campbell, M., Carter, J., Proctor, D., Eisenberg, M., & de Waal, F. (2009). Computer animations stimulate contagious yawning in chimpanzees Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276 (1676), 4255-4259 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1087.

4Campbell, M., & de Waal, F. (2011). Ingroup-Outgroup Bias in Contagious Yawning by Chimpanzees Supports Link to Empathy PLoS ONE, 6 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018283.

5Paukner, A., & Anderson, J. (2006). Video-induced yawning in stumptail macaques (Macaca arctoides) Biology Letters, 2 (1), 36-38 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2005.0411.

6Palagi, E., Leone, A., Mancini, G., & Ferrari, P. (2009). Contagious yawning in gelada baboons as a possible expression of empathy Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (46), 19262-19267 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0910891106.

7Joly-Mascheroni, R., Senju, A., & Shepherd, A. (2008). Dogs catch human yawns Biology Letters, 4 (5), 446-448 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0333.

7 Comments
by paulfnorris on November 2, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Mammals, Reptiles, Social Behavior
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by paulfnorris on November 2, 2011

https://animalwise.org/2011/11/02/a-yawning-divide-contagious-yawning-and-empathy-in-animals/

Converging with Canines: Are Humans and Dogs Evolving Together?

In our man-made world, it can feel like everything is converging all at once. Indistinguishable glass skyscrapers sprout up in cities all over the globe, near identical car models vent carbon dioxide into the air on different continents, and people around the world see their waistbands expand as they gulp down the same McFood. Global economies are more connected than ever, with natural disasters in Japan, sovereign debt issues in Europe, and rumors of Wall Street misdeeds shaking worldwide markets within minutes. Even the social media that deluge us with information seem like they’re growing more and more alike, as we now drown in unending streams of look-alike feeds, postings, messages and links from Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others.

You may wonder whether the forces of convergence are a recent phenomenon, a product of human technology, or whether they may have deeper roots in the natural world. In fact, convergence can and does occur in the realm of biological evolution, albeit at a more comfortable pace. For example, “convergent evolution” occurs when different species independently evolve similar solutions to comparable evolutionary pressures. A classic example of this is the development of wings and the ability to fly by birds, bats and pterosaurs:

Diagram of wing morphology and/or and comparative network hub structure of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ (image credit: National Center for Science Education)

Consider also the independent evolution of sleek, torpedo-shaped bodies by fish, cetaceans and ichthyosaurs:

Sleek ocean swimmers (image credit: All About Reptiles)

Closer to home, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have concluded that we may be undergoing a process of cognitive convergent evolution with dogs based on our social relationships over thousands of years with these “best friends” of ours. In a paper published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Brian Hare and Michael Tomasello reviewed a large number of studies focused on canine, human, and non-human primate social and communicative skills and reached some interesting conclusions.

Proof of convergent canine-human evolution (source unknown)

They began their analysis by focusing on research showing how well domestic dogs do at interpreting human social and communicative behavior. For example, dogs excel at tests in which experimenters hide food in one of several opaque containers and then signal where it has been hidden by pointing, gazing, bowing or nodding, or placing markers in front of the target location. The dogs easily interpret this type of cue, passing tests such as these on the first attempt and performing correctly even when humans try to trick them by walking towards the wrong container while pointing in the opposite direction to the correct container.

Also, studies have shown that dogs are aware of what humans can see. For instance, if a human turns around during a game of fetch, the dog will almost invariably bring the ball back around the human and drop the ball in front of his face. Similarly, dogs have shown that they prefer to beg for food from humans whose eyes are visible than from ones whose eyes are covered with a blindfold or bucket, but are more likely to approach forbidden food when a human’s eyes are closed.

Indeed, dogs actually consistently outperform chimpanzees and other primates at these types of skills, even though, in areas of non-social cognitive performance, dogs do not do so well. For example, non-human great apes are much better at making inferences about the location of hidden food based on non-social cues (such as a tilted board that might be tipped up by hidden treats) and at tests that require them to achieve food rewards by, for example, reeling in food attached to strings.

With this in mind, Hare and Tomasello turned to whether domestic dogs’ specialized social skills are likely to be due to convergent cognitive evolution with humans or whether another explanation is more plausible.

First, they considered the possibility that dogs learn to recognize human social cues based on their experiences growing up in human households. They found, however, that studies show that even puppies as young as nine weeks old are adept at solving problems using human pointing and gaze cues, and that puppies raised without much exposure to humans are equally skilled at interpreting these cues.

Then, they considered whether domestic dogs may have simply inherited their social skills based on their common ancestry with wolves, since wolves are, after all, pack hunters who need to be able to follow complex social interactions with other wolves and with prey. However, although wolves are generally equal to or better than domestic dogs at memory tests and tasks involving general problem-solving abilities, wolves (even those raised by humans) are simply unable to match the performance of dogs at spontaneously using human social cues to solve problems.

Next, the researchers sought evidence for the evolution of social skills in dogs through their long-term relationship with humans. They looked at a population of domesticated foxes, where the selection for breeding had been based solely on the tendency of individual foxes to be non-aggressive and fearless around humans. Interestingly, these foxes were just as adept as dogs in using and interpreting human social cues, and far better than a population of control foxes that had been bread randomly with respect to their attitude towards humans.

Based on all of these comparative findings, Hare and Tomasello concluded that the best explanation for dogs’ specialized social skills is that they evolved as a consequence of dogs having been domesticating by humans, representing a case of convergent cognitive evolution. Interestingly, Hare and Tomasello went further and, based on their review of the research on domesticated foxes, concluded that the evolution of specialized social skills in domesticated dogs may actually have been an incidental byproduct of an initial decision to select based solely on nonaggression (as opposed to social intelligence).

Finally, turning to primate evolution, Hare and Tomasello speculated that a similar process may have contributed to differences between human and chimpanzee social skills. Under what they refer to as the “emotional reactivity” hypothesis, they predicted that differences in temperament between humans and other primates may help explain some of humans’ extraordinary social cognitive abilities. They point to studies showing that chimpanzees’ willingness to cooperate with each other can often be limited by lack of social tolerance for one another resulting from fear and/or aggression, and contrast this to a more socially tolerant temperament that may ultimately have enabled our hominid ancestors to develop flexible forms of cooperation and communication. In other words, humans underwent a form of self-domestication leading to greater social abilities, thereby convergently evolving with our canine companions who were undergoing the same process.

I’m not sure I entirely buy the notion that we humans are so exceptionally tolerant, but I have noticed that you’ve started to look a bit like your dog. In a future post, we may look at whether we may also be evolving to be more like members of the cat family:

Which one is the lion? (source unknown)

_____

ResearchBlogging.orgHare, B., & Tomasello, M. (2005). Human-like social skills in dogs? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9 (9), 439-444 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.003

6 Comments
by paulfnorris on September 26, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Mammals, Social Behavior
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by paulfnorris on September 26, 2011

https://animalwise.org/2011/09/26/converging-with-canines-are-humans-and-dogs-evolving-together/

The “Yellow Snow” Test for Self-Recognition

The Mirror Self-Recognition Test

The mirror self-recognition (MSR) test has long been used to assess whether an animal is self-aware, whether it has a sense of self. In the classic version of the test, a colored mark is placed on an animal’s body in such a way that it can only be seen in a mirror. To pass the test, the animal must spontaneously use the mirror to detect the mark and then scratch or otherwise direct activity toward it, thereby indicating recognition of the image in the mirror as itself and not some other animal.

Not only is self-recognition considered to be an indication of higher cognitive functioning, but it has also been seen as a potential springboard to even more sophisticated abilities, such as being able to attribute mental states to other individuals (sometimes referred to as “theory of mind”).

To date, only a relatively few animals have passed the MSR test, including certain primates, dolphins, elephants, and, as we saw in a prior post, magpies.

But is the test itself biased? We humans rely heavily on our eyesight and may naturally – anthropocentrically – have settled on a test that is based on visual interpretation.

What about animals who rely more on their sense of smell – dogs, for instance? Well, Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, wondered about this too.

The Yellow Snow Test

Over a five year period, Bekoff performed a study1 in which he diligently tracked the behavior of his own dog, Jethro, when Jethro encountered clumps of snow saturated with his own and other dogs’ urine (“yellow snow”) while walking freely along a bicycle path in Colorado on winter mornings.

Snow pile, snow pile, on the ground, who’s the finest smelling hound? (photo: Walter Jeffries)

Bekoff would wait until Jethro (a neutered male German Shepherd and Rottweiler mix) or other known female and male dogs urinated on snow, and then scoop up the clump of yellow snow as soon as Jethro was elsewhere and did not see him pick it up or move it (Bekoff used clean gloves each time and took other precautions to minimize odor and visual cues). Bekoff then moved the yellow snow varying distances down the path so that Jethro would run across the displaced urine: (i) within about 10 seconds, (ii) between 10-120 seconds later, or (iii) between 120-300 seconds later. After Jethro arrived, Bekoff recorded how long he sniffed at the yellow snow, whether he urinated over it using the typical male raised-leg posture, and whether urination immediately followed the sniffing (“scent marking”).

After compiling and statistically analyzing the data, Bekoff found that Jethro paid significantly less attention to his own displaced urine than he did to the displaced urine of other dogs. For example, when Jethro encountered the yellow snow within 10 seconds, he sniffed for longer than 3 seconds only about 10% of the time when it was his own urine, compared to over 80% of the time when it was other dogs’ urine. (Jethro did tend to have longer sniffs at his own urine when he arrived after more than 10 seconds, but in all scenarios he still sniffed significantly longer at the other dogs’ urine.) Likewise, he very rarely urinated over or scent-marked his own yellow snow, but frequently did so with the yellow snow of other dogs, particularly other males.

The following table summarizes the data collected (note that the reference to “120-150s” in the Arrives column appears to be erroneous, and should instead read “120-300s”):

In sum, Jethro’s behavior clearly demonstrates that he was able to discriminate the scent of his own urine from that of other dogs. Of course this is just one set of tests on one dog, but would it surprise anyone if other dogs showed similar abilities?

Is there a fundamental difference between an animal recognizing its own image in a mirror and one recognizing its own scent in yellow snow? There certainly are different cognitive process involved (Bekoff himself has suggested that the yellow snow test may be more indicative of a sense of “mine-ness” in dogs than of a sense of “I-ness”2).

At a minimum, though, the yellow snow test stands as a useful warning that we humans need to be careful not to make quick judgments about animal intelligence or cognitive capacity (or lack thereof) based on tests that are well-suited to humans, but that fail to match the skills and abilities of the particular animal.

_____

1Bekoff, M. (2001). Observations of scent-marking and discriminating self from others by a domestic dog (Canis familiaris): tales of displaced yellow snow Behavioural Processes, 55 (2), 75-79 DOI: 10.1016/S0376-6357(01)00142-5.

2Bekoff, M. Considering Animals—Not “Higher” Primates. Zygon 38, 229-245 (2003).

13 Comments
by paulfnorris on August 16, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Mammals
Tagged , ,

Posted by paulfnorris on August 16, 2011

https://animalwise.org/2011/08/16/the-yellow-snow-test-for-self-recognition/

My Border Collie Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student

Or so the bumper sticker says.

On this Fourth of July, it seems appropriate to salute man’s best friend in a brief holiday post. Meet Chaser, a true canine linguistic champion.

Chaser understands more than 1,000 words, along with simple sentences. Her vocabulary includes the names of 1,022 objects, including 800 stuffed animals, 116 balls and 26 “Frisbees,” any of which she can fetch on command.

Chaser, resting after studying for the bar exam (photo credit: ABCNEWS.com)

In addition, if a new toy is placed among her playthings, she is able to retrieve it when given its unfamiliar name, inferring its identity by a process of exclusion. She also has been studying her verbs, demonstrating that she knows how to “find,” “nose” and “paw” each of her toys. I assume that next she will be working on her gerunds and finishing her mastery of the subjunctive mood.

Happy Fourth, Chaser!

You can read more about Chaser and see her in action in this ABC News1 story.

_____

1ABC News, “World’s Smartest Dog? Meet a Border Collie Whose Memory Astounds,” February 9, 2011.

4 Comments
by paulfnorris on July 4, 2011  •  Permalink
Posted in Language, Mammals, Social Behavior
Tagged , , ,

Posted by paulfnorris on July 4, 2011

https://animalwise.org/2011/07/04/my-border-collie-is-smarter-than-your-honor-student/