Posted on 11/28/2007 7:54:46 PM PST by blam
Dogs display aspects of human intelligence
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 6:01pm GMT 28/11/2007
Dog lovers have long claimed that their pets are smarter than many of us realise.
New evidence to back that view comes from research published today which concludes that, like us, our canine friends are able to form abstract concepts.
Friederike Range and colleagues from the University of Vienna, Austria, show for the first time that dogs are able to learn how to classify complex colour photographs and place them into categories in the same way that humans do.
Training stimuli: Images of dogs and landscapes are used to test dogs' recognition of abstract concepts
"Dogs were for a long time considered to be just pets - so showing that they are able to also form abstract concepts maybe gives their cognitive abilities more credit," she said.
However, the abstract concept they were able to grasp in this pioneering experiment was rather familiar, that of "dog."
The team reports in the journal Animal Cognition a clever way to show that the dogs are not picking up subtle signals from their handlers: the dogs successfully demonstrate their learning through the use of computer touch-screens, eliminating potential human influences.
Four dogs were shown both landscape and dog photographs simultaneously and were rewarded with food if they selected the dog picture on the touch screen.
Then they were shown a new set of dog and landscape pictures. They continued to reliably select the dog photographs, demonstrating that they could transfer their knowledge gained in the training phase to a new circumstance, even though they had never seen those particular pictures before.
In a second test, the dogs were faced with a choice between a new dog pasted on a familiar landscape and a completely new landscape with no dog, In this case, they reliably selected the landscape with the dog.
"These results show that the dogs were able to form a concept, that is 'dog', although the experiment cannot tell us whether they recognized the dog pictures as actual dogs," said Dr Range.
"Using touch-screen computers with dogs opens up a whole world of possibilities on how to test the cognitive abilities of dogs."
The dogs that took part were a Border Collie (Maggie), one Border Collie mix (Lucy), one Australian Shepherd (Bertl), and one mongrel (Todor). Two dogs were male (Bertl, Todor), two were female (Maggie, Lucy).
In earlier work, the team showed striking similarities between humans and dogs in the way they imitate others, showing they do more than copy. They also interpet what they see.
doggie ping
Hi blam. I love your dogs.
I see these people have met my cattle dog, Peaches. You have to be careful with this one. She can figure out what you are doing.
My previous lab (rest her sweet soul) had conversations with my Husband.. He didn’t understand her vocalizations but she understood his.
She would go into the bedroom or the kitchen and get the item he mentioned. She would turn left, turn right..and other than being taught to shake and to heel she never had any training..
Love the pic.
Scene: Dog, Human, and a toilet.
Man says “do not drink out of that, I pee in it”.
Dog says : “Do not pee in there, I drink out of it”.
It is all a matter of perspective, I guess.
....Bob
I looked. Glad you aren’t suspended. I was hoping for a picture of your dog.
There is a doggie pinger... she’s just been a little distracted lately.... I’ll ping your thread momentarily. :~)
Research is getting WAY too easy these days...
yorkie, you did not ping me. I f someone will teach me; I would do it.
He also hears and understands the school bus. I had to drive my two youngest a couple weeks ago (science project too cumbersome for the bus). Bax got frantic when he heard the bus but the boys were still in the house. It is really funny how they learn our routines and then tell us when we do something different.
Your four legged friends are beauties...what a nice photo of you all :)PaMom
Can we at least have ONE thread without pictures of democrats? Sheesh, some folks are absolutely obsessed.
We have to do a lot of spelling in our house because all of the five indoor dogs know way too many words and phrases. We pretty much talk to them just as we would any person. Frightening, really.
Name is BUDDY but he's dead, now, and they gave his cat friend away...
That's for sure...my dogs can even tell time. They know exactly when their dinner is due.
Ping!
LOL...nah...I’m on good behavior here. I did that as a joke aloooooong time ago. I really will put a picture Baxter up...he has a very expressionful face.
IOW, I once had an Afghan Hound that was dumber than an inbred snail and I was barely able to teach him basic commands. I rarely observed evidence of much original thought or obvious associations in him. Now with my GS/Border Collie mix, she was not only easily trained, she early on demonstrated she could learn cause and effect connections independently of my training. I'm talking small stuff here like understanding that when I go to a certain room in the house and drag out luggage that I'm leaving for some time, to which she becomes quite agitated. And she has been known to stow away, or at least make an attempt, in my car. The Afghan was simply never was able to put 2 and 2 together. This was tragically revealed when he failed to learn that cars are much bigger and likely to cause great harm if not avoided.
Even a dumb as a rock dog is smarter.
This is a thread about dogs. Please stay on topic. (FReeper rule 18.2a)
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