Could crows hold the secret to understanding non-mammalian intelligence?

 

 

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Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains

December 22, 2013 in Miscellaneous

• Crows have been shown to make strategic decisions, similar to humans
• They way they think tells us about non-mammalian intelligence
• The learnings could be applied to the intelligence of alien species

Scientists have long suspected that corvids – the family of birds including ravens, crows and magpies – are highly intelligent.

Now, neurobiologists have demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds have to make strategic decisions, the same as humans, despite our lack of a common ancestor.
The research could give us an insight into the workings of the mind of a non-mammalian – including extraterrestrial life forms.

Lena Veit and Professor Andreas Nieder, from Tubingen University in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have published a study in Nature Communications that provides valuable and exciting insights into the parallel evolution of intelligent behaviour.

‘Many functions are realised differently in birds because a long evolutionary history separates us from these direct descendants of the dinosaurs,’ sais Ms Veit.




‘This means that bird brains can show us an alternative solution out of how intelligent behaviour is produced with a different anatomy.’
Crows and primates have different brains, but the cells regulating decision-making are very similar. They represent a general principle which has re-emerged throughout the history of evolution.

‘Just as we can draw valid conclusions on aerodynamics from a comparison of the very differently constructed wings of birds and bats, here we are able to draw conclusions about how the brain works by investigating the functional similarities and differences of the relevant brain areas in avian and mammalian brains,’ says Professor Andreas Nieder.

Far from being ‘bird-brains’, crows are so smart behavioral biologists have even called them ‘feathered primates’ because the birds make and use tools, are able to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior according to what other members of their group do.

This high level of intelligence might seem surprising because birds’ brains are constructed in a fundamentally different way from those of mammals, including primates – which are usually used to investigate these behaviors.

The Tubingen researchers are the first to investigate the brain physiology of crows’ intelligent behavior. They trained crows to carry out memory tests on a computer.

The crows were shown an image and had to remember it. Shortly afterwards, they had to select one of two test images on a touchscreen with their beaks based on a switching behavioral rules.

NOT BIRD-BRAINED: THE UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE DISPLAYED BY CROWS

They use tools

Crows have been observed using cars as nutcrackers. They drop the nuts into the road and when they are smashed open dive in to eat.

They talk to each other

scientists debate whether or not crows actually have what we call a language, but they do communicate at an advanced level.

They have incredible memories

Crows have been known to change their entire migration pattern to avoid farms where even a single crow has been killed in the past.
Generations upon generations later, they still remember specific houses where one measly bird has died.

Crows can remember faces

Scientists in Seattle did an experiment where they tagged crows and released them while wearing masks. The birds became angry when they saw thwe researchers in masks, but left them alone when they were removed.

Source: cracked.com

One of the test images was identical to the first image, the other different. Sometimes the rule of the game was to select the same image, and sometimes it was to select the different one.

The crows were able to carry out both tasks and to switch between them as appropriate.

That demonstrates a high level of concentration and mental flexibility which few animal species can manage – and which is an effort even for humans.

The crows were quickly able to carry out these tasks even when given new sets of images. The researchers observed neuronal activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a brain region associated with the highest levels of cognition in birds.

One group of nerve cells responded exclusively when the crows had to choose the same image – while another group of cells always responded when they were operating on the ‘different image’ rule.

By observing this cell activity, the researchers were often able to predict which rule the crow was following even before it made its choice.

SAM WEBB - DailyMail

 ird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains December 22, 2013 in Miscellaneous inShare Crows have been shown to make strategic decisions, similar to humans They way they think tells us about non-mammalian intelligence The learnings could be applied to the intelligence of alien species Scientists have long suspected that corvids – the family of birds including ravens, crows and magpies – are highly intelligent. Now, neurobiologists have demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds have to make strategic decisions, the same as humans, despite our lack of a common ancestor. The research could give us an insight into the workings of the mind of a non-mammalian – including extraterrestrial life forms. Lena Veit and Professor Andreas Nieder, from Tubingen University in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have published a study in Nature Communications that provides valuable and exciting insights into the parallel evolution of intelligent behaviour. ‘Many functions are realised differently in birds because a long evolutionary history separates us from these direct descendants of the dinosaurs,’ sais Ms Veit. Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird's exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials' brains01 ‘This means that bird brains can show us an alternative solution out of how intelligent behaviour is produced with a different anatomy.’ Crows and primates have different brains, but the cells regulating decision-making are very similar. They represent a general principle which has re-emerged throughout the history of evolution. ‘Just as we can draw valid conclusions on aerodynamics from a comparison of the very differently constructed wings of birds and bats, here we are able to draw conclusions about how the brain works by investigating the functional similarities and differences of the relevant brain areas in avian and mammalian brains,’ says Professor Andreas Nieder. Far from being ‘bird-brains’, crows are so smart behavioral biologists have even called them ‘feathered primates’ because the birds make and use tools, are able to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior according to what other members of their group do. This high level of intelligence might seem surprising because birds’ brains are constructed in a fundamentally different way from those of mammals, including primates – which are usually used to investigate these behaviors. The Tubingen researchers are the first to investigate the brain physiology of crows’ intelligent behavior. They trained crows to carry out memory tests on a computer. The crows were shown an image and had to remember it. Shortly afterwards, they had to select one of two test images on a touchscreen with their beaks based on a switching behavioral rules. NOT BIRD-BRAINED: THE UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE DISPLAYED BY CROWS They use tools Crows have been observed using cars as nutcrackers. They drop the nuts into the road and when they are smashed open dive in to eat. They talk to each other scientists debate whether or not crows actually have what we call a language, but they do communicate at an advanced level. They have incredible memories Crows have been known to change their entire migration pattern to avoid farms where even a single crow has been killed in the past. Generations upon generations later, they still remember specific houses where one measly bird has died. Crows can remember faces Scientists in Seattle did an experiment where they tagged crows and released them while wearing masks. The birds became angry when they saw thwe researchers in masks, but left them alone when they were removed. Source: cracked.com One of the test images was identical to the first image, the other different. Sometimes the rule of the game was to select the same image, and sometimes it was to select the different one. The crows were able to carry out both tasks and to switch between them as appropriate. That demonstrates a high level of concentration and mental flexibility which few animal species can manage – and which is an effort even for humans. The crows were quickly able to carry out these tasks even when given new sets of images. The researchers observed neuronal activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a brain region associated with the highest levels of cognition in birds. One group of nerve cells responded exclusively when the crows had to choose the same image – while another group of cells always responded when they were operating on the ‘different image’ rule. By observing this cell activity, the researchers were often able to predict which rule the crow was following even before it made its choice. SAM WEBB - DailyMail Share ! inShare [Pin It] Tagged with: Aliens BIRD BRAINED CROWS DISPLAYED evolution Germany INTELLIGENCE life Ms Veit Nature Communications Professor Andreas Nieder researchers scientists social study UNCANNY Previous: Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Related Articles Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains December 17, 2013 Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no December 15, 2013 Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens December 13, 2013 Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia December 12, 2013 Video: UFO, Alien Research Being Examined By U.S. House Of Representatives Video: UFO, Alien Research Being Examined By U.S. House Of Representatives December 12, 2013 Mars One is one step closer to its dream of colonizing Mars Mars One is one step closer to its dream of colonizing Mars December 12, 2013 Is there an Alien/Human war debate? Is there an Alien/Human war debate? December 10, 2013 Congress talks about searching for extraterrestrials on other planets Congress talks about searching for extraterrestrials on other planets December 10, 2013 Video: 7ft. Black People From Outer Space – Norman Bergrun – Ringmakers of Saturn Video: 7ft. Black People From Outer Space – Norman Bergrun – Ringmakers of Saturn December 9, 2013 Why the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life is Important? Why the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life is Important? December 6, 2013 Congressional hearings on extraterrestrial life Congressional hearings on extraterrestrial life December 4, 2013 Aliens are central characters in UK school’s Christmas nativity play Aliens are central characters in UK school’s Christmas nativity play December 4, 2013 Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Name * Email * Website 2 + one = Quotes by ET.Updates Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama Social Latest Posts Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains December 22, 2013 Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains December 17, 2013 Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no December 15, 2013 Video: Top 10 Most Mysterious UFO Cases Of All Time Video: Top 10 Most Mysterious UFO Cases Of All Time December 15, 2013 Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens December 13, 2013 Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia December 12, 2013 Related Posts Unidentified flying object flying over BC, Canada - 6-Jun-2012 (Video) Gene Predicts Time of Death Video: UFOs Europe : The Untold Stories : 2012 Episode 4 Many UFO researchers die under mysterious circumstances UFOs Disclosure In USA Is A Complex Reality : Renato Longato (Video) Flickering Stars: Could Aliens Be Sending Us Signals? UFO - The Third Reich: Aliens, Nazi Technology and the Vril Society (VIDEO) Humans and robots work better together following cross-training Video: Case Dismissed! Texas Ends 15-Year Fight Against Cancer Doctor Burzynski Roswell officer speaks from grave taped most watched Video: December 2013 M T W T F S S « Nov 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 _

Read more at: http://www.etupdates.com/2013/12/22/could-crows-hold-the-secret-to-understanding-aliens-birds-exceptional-intelligence-could-help-scientists-shed-light-on-extraterrestrials-brains/ | ET. Updates

Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains December 22, 2013 in Miscellaneous inShare Crows have been shown to make strategic decisions, similar to humans They way they think tells us about non-mammalian intelligence The learnings could be applied to the intelligence of alien species Scientists have long suspected that corvids – the family of birds including ravens, crows and magpies – are highly intelligent. Now, neurobiologists have demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds have to make strategic decisions, the same as humans, despite our lack of a common ancestor. The research could give us an insight into the workings of the mind of a non-mammalian – including extraterrestrial life forms. Lena Veit and Professor Andreas Nieder, from Tubingen University in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have published a study in Nature Communications that provides valuable and exciting insights into the parallel evolution of intelligent behaviour. ‘Many functions are realised differently in birds because a long evolutionary history separates us from these direct descendants of the dinosaurs,’ sais Ms Veit. Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird's exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials' brains01 ‘This means that bird brains can show us an alternative solution out of how intelligent behaviour is produced with a different anatomy.’ Crows and primates have different brains, but the cells regulating decision-making are very similar. They represent a general principle which has re-emerged throughout the history of evolution. ‘Just as we can draw valid conclusions on aerodynamics from a comparison of the very differently constructed wings of birds and bats, here we are able to draw conclusions about how the brain works by investigating the functional similarities and differences of the relevant brain areas in avian and mammalian brains,’ says Professor Andreas Nieder. Far from being ‘bird-brains’, crows are so smart behavioral biologists have even called them ‘feathered primates’ because the birds make and use tools, are able to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior according to what other members of their group do. This high level of intelligence might seem surprising because birds’ brains are constructed in a fundamentally different way from those of mammals, including primates – which are usually used to investigate these behaviors. The Tubingen researchers are the first to investigate the brain physiology of crows’ intelligent behavior. They trained crows to carry out memory tests on a computer. The crows were shown an image and had to remember it. Shortly afterwards, they had to select one of two test images on a touchscreen with their beaks based on a switching behavioral rules. NOT BIRD-BRAINED: THE UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE DISPLAYED BY CROWS They use tools Crows have been observed using cars as nutcrackers. They drop the nuts into the road and when they are smashed open dive in to eat. They talk to each other scientists debate whether or not crows actually have what we call a language, but they do communicate at an advanced level. They have incredible memories Crows have been known to change their entire migration pattern to avoid farms where even a single crow has been killed in the past. Generations upon generations later, they still remember specific houses where one measly bird has died. Crows can remember faces Scientists in Seattle did an experiment where they tagged crows and released them while wearing masks. The birds became angry when they saw thwe researchers in masks, but left them alone when they were removed. Source: cracked.com One of the test images was identical to the first image, the other different. Sometimes the rule of the game was to select the same image, and sometimes it was to select the different one. The crows were able to carry out both tasks and to switch between them as appropriate. That demonstrates a high level of concentration and mental flexibility which few animal species can manage – and which is an effort even for humans. The crows were quickly able to carry out these tasks even when given new sets of images. The researchers observed neuronal activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a brain region associated with the highest levels of cognition in birds. One group of nerve cells responded exclusively when the crows had to choose the same image – while another group of cells always responded when they were operating on the ‘different image’ rule. By observing this cell activity, the researchers were often able to predict which rule the crow was following even before it made its choice. SAM WEBB - DailyMail Share ! inShare [Pin It] Tagged with: Aliens BIRD BRAINED CROWS DISPLAYED evolution Germany INTELLIGENCE life Ms Veit Nature Communications Professor Andreas Nieder researchers scientists social study UNCANNY Previous: Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Related Articles Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains December 17, 2013 Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no December 15, 2013 Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens December 13, 2013 Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia December 12, 2013 Video: UFO, Alien Research Being Examined By U.S. House Of Representatives Video: UFO, Alien Research Being Examined By U.S. House Of Representatives December 12, 2013 Mars One is one step closer to its dream of colonizing Mars Mars One is one step closer to its dream of colonizing Mars December 12, 2013 Is there an Alien/Human war debate? Is there an Alien/Human war debate? December 10, 2013 Congress talks about searching for extraterrestrials on other planets Congress talks about searching for extraterrestrials on other planets December 10, 2013 Video: 7ft. Black People From Outer Space – Norman Bergrun – Ringmakers of Saturn Video: 7ft. Black People From Outer Space – Norman Bergrun – Ringmakers of Saturn December 9, 2013 Why the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life is Important? Why the Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life is Important? December 6, 2013 Congressional hearings on extraterrestrial life Congressional hearings on extraterrestrial life December 4, 2013 Aliens are central characters in UK school’s Christmas nativity play Aliens are central characters in UK school’s Christmas nativity play December 4, 2013 Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Name * Email * Website 2 + one = Quotes by ET.Updates Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. Barack Obama Social Latest Posts Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains December 22, 2013 Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains Video: Aliens and Mysterious Mountains December 17, 2013 Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no Are we ready for more UFO and other disclosure? Yes and no December 15, 2013 Video: Top 10 Most Mysterious UFO Cases Of All Time Video: Top 10 Most Mysterious UFO Cases Of All Time December 15, 2013 Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens Video: 8 People Who Make A Strong Case For Aliens December 13, 2013 Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia Video: UFO’s hot spot in Lake Baikai, Russia December 12, 2013 Related Posts Unidentified flying object flying over BC, Canada - 6-Jun-2012 (Video) Gene Predicts Time of Death Video: UFOs Europe : The Untold Stories : 2012 Episode 4 Many UFO researchers die under mysterious circumstances UFOs Disclosure In USA Is A Complex Reality : Renato Longato (Video) Flickering Stars: Could Aliens Be Sending Us Signals? UFO - The Third Reich: Aliens, Nazi Technology and the Vril Society (VIDEO) Humans and robots work better together following cross-training Video: Case Dismissed! Texas Ends 15-Year Fight Against Cancer Doctor Burzynski Roswell officer speaks from grave taped most watched Video: December 2013 M T W T F S S « Nov 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 _

Read more at: http://www.etupdates.com/2013/12/22/could-crows-hold-the-secret-to-understanding-aliens-birds-exceptional-intelligence-could-help-scientists-shed-light-on-extraterrestrials-brains/ | ET. Updates

Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird’s exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials’ brains December 22, 2013 in Miscellaneous inShare Crows have been shown to make strategic decisions, similar to humans They way they think tells us about non-mammalian intelligence The learnings could be applied to the intelligence of alien species Scientists have long suspected that corvids – the family of birds including ravens, crows and magpies – are highly intelligent. Now, neurobiologists have demonstrated how the brains of crows produce intelligent behavior when the birds have to make strategic decisions, the same as humans, despite our lack of a common ancestor. The research could give us an insight into the workings of the mind of a non-mammalian – including extraterrestrial life forms. Lena Veit and Professor Andreas Nieder, from Tubingen University in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have published a study in Nature Communications that provides valuable and exciting insights into the parallel evolution of intelligent behaviour. ‘Many functions are realised differently in birds because a long evolutionary history separates us from these direct descendants of the dinosaurs,’ sais Ms Veit. Could crows hold the secret to understanding ALIENS? Bird's exceptional intelligence could help scientists shed light on extraterrestrials' brains01 ‘This means that bird brains can show us an alternative solution out of how intelligent behaviour is produced with a different anatomy.’ Crows and primates have different brains, but the cells regulating decision-making are very similar. They represent a general principle which has re-emerged throughout the history of evolution. ‘Just as we can draw valid conclusions on aerodynamics from a comparison of the very differently constructed wings of birds and bats, here we are able to draw conclusions about how the brain works by investigating the functional similarities and differences of the relevant brain areas in avian and mammalian brains,’ says Professor Andreas Nieder. Far from being ‘bird-brains’, crows are so smart behavioral biologists have even called them ‘feathered primates’ because the birds make and use tools, are able to remember large numbers of feeding sites, and plan their social behavior according to what other members of their group do. This high level of intelligence might seem surprising because birds’ brains are constructed in a fundamentally different way from those of mammals, including primates – which are usually used to investigate these behaviors. The Tubingen researchers are the first to investigate the brain physiology of crows’ intelligent behavior. They trained crows to carry out memory tests on a computer. The crows were shown an image and had to remember it. Shortly afterwards, they had to select one of two test images on a touchscreen with their beaks based on a switching behavioral rules. NOT BIRD-BRAINED: THE UNCANNY INTELLIGENCE DISPLAYED BY CROWS They use tools Crows have been observed using cars as nutcrackers. They drop the nuts into the road and when they are smashed open dive in to eat. They talk to each other scientists debate whether or not crows actually have what we call a language, but they do communicate at an advanced level. They have incredible memories Crows have been known to change their entire migration pattern to avoid farms where even a single crow has been killed in the past. Generations upon generations later, they still remember specific houses where one measly bird has died. Crows can remember faces Scientists in Seattle did an experiment where they tagged crows and released them while wearing masks. The birds became angry when they saw thwe researchers in masks, but left them alone when they were removed. Source: cracked.com One of the test images was identical to the first image, the other different. Sometimes the rule of the game was to select the same image, and sometimes it was to select the different one. The crows were able to carry out both tasks and to switch between them as appropriate. That demonstrates a high level of concentration and mental flexibility which few animal species can manage – and which is an effort even for humans. The crows were quickly able to carry out these tasks even when given new sets of images. The researchers observed neuronal activity in the nidopallium caudolaterale, a brain region associated with the highest levels of cognition in birds. One group of nerve cells responded exclusively when the crows had to choose the same image – while another group of cells always responded when they were operating on the ‘different image’ rule. By observing this cell activity, the researchers were often able to predict which rule the crow was following even before it made its choice. SAM WEBB - DailyMail

Read more at: http://www.etupdates.com/2013/12/22/could-crows-hold-the-secret-to-understanding-aliens-birds-exceptional-intelligence-could-help-scientists-shed-light-on-extraterrestrials-brains/ | ET. Updates

Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home

The Unexplained Powers Of Animals

The psychic powers of animals is explored and its implication for human consciousness is considered by Rupert Sheldrake. by Rupert Sheldrake

Psychic powers in animals? What does it tell us about ourselves?

For many years animal trainers, pet owners and naturalists have reported various kinds of perceptiveness in animals that suggest the existence of psychic powers. Surprisingly little research has been done on these phenomena. Biologists have been inhibited by the taboo against ‘the paranormal’, and psychical researchers and parapsychologists have with few exceptions confined their attention to human beings.

According to recent random household surveys in England and the USA, many pet owners believe their animals are sometimes telepathic with them. An average of 48 per cent of dog owners and 33 per cent of cat owners said that their pets responded to their thoughts or silent commands. Many horse trainers and riders believe their horse can pick up their intentions telepathically.

 Some companion animals even seem able to tell when a particular person is on the telephone before the receiver has been picked up. For example, when the telephone rings in the household of a noted professor at the University of California at Berkeley, his wife knows when her husband is on the other end of the line because Whiskins, their silver tabby cat, rushes to the telephone and paws at the receiver. “Many times he succeeds in taking it off the hook and makes appreciative meows that are clearly audible to my husband at the other end”, she says. “If someone else telephones, Whiskins takes no notice.”

For several years, with the help of hundreds of animal trainers, shepherds, blind people with guide dogs, veterinarians and pet owners, I have investigated some of these unexplained powers of animals. There are three major categories of seemingly mysterious perceptiveness: telepathy, the sense of direction and premonition.

Animal telepathy

The commonest kinds of seemingly telepathic response are the anticipation by dogs and cats of their owners coming home; the anticipation of owners going away; the anticipation of being fed; cats disappearing when their owners intend to take them to the vet; dogs knowing when their owners are planning to take them for a walk; and animals that get excited when their owner is on the telephone, even before the telephone is answered.

As skeptics rightly point out, some of these responses could be explained as routine expectations, subtle sensory cues, chance coincidence and selective memory, or put down to the imaginations of doting pet owners. These are reasonable hypotheses, but they should not be accepted in the absence of evidence.

My colleagues and I have concentrated on the phenomenon of dogs that know when their owners are coming home. Many pet owners have observed that their animals seem to anticipate the arrival of a member of the household, often 10 minutes or more in advance. The pets typically wait at a door, window or gate. In random household surveys in Britain and America, an average of 51 per cent of dog owners and 30 per cent of cat owners said they had noticed such anticipatory behaviour.

The dog I have investigated in most detail is a terrier called Jaytee, who belongs to Pam Smart, in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester. Pam adopted Jaytee from Manchester Dogs’ Home in 1989 when he was still a puppy, and soon formed a close bond with him.

In 1991, when Pam was working as a secretary at a school in Manchester, she left Jaytee with her parents, who noticed that the dog went to the French window almost every weekday at about 4.30 pm, around the time she set off, and waited there until she arrived some 45 minutes later. She worked routine office hours, so the family assumed that Jaytee’s behaviour depended on some kind of time sense.

Pam was made redundant in 1993 and was no longer tied to any regular pattern of activity. Her parents did not usually know when she would be coming home, but Jaytee still anticipated her return.

 In 1994 Pam read an article about my research and volunteered to take part. In more than 100 experiments, we videotaped the area by the window where Jaytee waited during Pam’s absences, providing a continuous, time-coded record of his behaviour which was scored ‘blind’ by a third party who did not know the details of the experiments. To check that Jaytee was not reacting to the sound of Pam’s car or other familiar vehicles, we investigated whether he still anticipated her arrival when she travelled by unusual means: by bicycle, by train and by taxi. He did.

We also carried out experiments in which Pam set off at times selected at random after she had left home, communicated to her by means of a telephone pager. In these experiments, Jaytee still started waiting at the window around the time Pam set off, even though no one at home knew when she would be coming. The odds against this being a chance effect were more than 100,000 to one. Jaytee behaved in a very similar way when he was tested repeatedly by sceptics anxious to debunk his abilities.

 The evidence indicates that Jaytee was reacting to Pam’s intention to come home even when she was many miles away. Telepathy seems the only hypothesis that can account for the facts.

Another example is the apparent ability of dogs to know when they are going to be taken for walks. In these experiments the dogs are kept in a separate room or outbuilding and videotaped continuously. Meanwhile their owner, at a randomly selected time, thinks about taking them for a walk and then five minutes later does so. Our experiments have shown dogs exhibiting obvious excitement when their owner is thinking about taking them out, although they could not have known this by normal sensory means. They did not manifest such excitement at other times.

 If domestic animals are telepathic with their human owners, then it seems likely that animals are telepathic with each other, and that this may play an important part in the wild. Some naturalists have already suggested that the coordination of flocks of birds and herds of animals may involve something like telepathy, as may communication between members of a wolfpack.

The sense of direction

Homing pigeons can find their way back to their loft over hundreds of miles of unfamiliar terrain. Migrating European swallows travel thousands of miles to their feeding grounds in Africa, and in the spring return to their native place. Some dogs, cats, horses and other domesticated animals also have a good sense of direction and can make their way home from unfamiliar places many miles away.

Most research on animal navigation has been carried out with homing pigeons, and this research over many decades has served only to deepen the problem of understanding their direction-finding ability. Navigation is goal-directed, and implies that the animals know where their home is even when they are in an unfamiliar place, and have to cross unfamiliar terrain.

Pigeons do not know their way home by remembering the twists and turns of the outward journey, because birds taken in closed vans by devious routes find their way home perfectly well, as do birds that have been anaesthetized on the outward journey, or transported in rotating drums. They do not navigate by the sun, because pigeons can home on cloudy days and can even be trained to navigate at night. However, they may use the sun as a simple compass to keep their bearings. Although they use landmarks in familiar terrain, they can home from unfamiliar places hundreds of kilometres from their home, with no familiar landmarks. They cannot smell their home from hundreds of miles away, especially when it is downwind, although smell may play a part in their homing ability when they are close to familiar territory.

 Some biologists hope that the homing of pigeons might turn out to be explicable in terms of a magnetic sense. But even if pigeons have a compass-sense (which is not proven), this could not explain their ability to navigate. If you were taken blindfold to an unknown destination and given a compass, you would know where north was, but not the direction of your home.

The failure of conventional attempts to explain pigeon homing and many other kinds of animal navigation implies the existence of a sense of direction as yet unrecognized by institutional science. This could have major implications for the understanding of animal migrations, and would shed light on the human sense of direction, much better developed in traditional peoples, such as the bushmen of the Kalahari or Polynesian navigators, than in modern urban people.

Premonitions

Very little research has been done on animal premonitions, even in the case of earthquakes where such warnings could prove very useful.

Some forewarnings might be explicable in terms of physical clues, such as electrical changes before earthquakes and storms. Other premonitions are more mysterious, as in the case of animals that anticipated air raids during the Second World War long before they could have heard enemy planes approaching, or animals that become agitated before unforeseeable accidents. Here precognition or presentiment may be involved, implying either an influence passing backwards in time, or a blurring of the distinction between future, present and past.

All three types of perceptiveness—telepathy, the sense of direction and premonitions—seem better developed in non-human species like dogs than they are in people. Nevertheless they occur in the human realm too, but they seem to be better developed in traditional cultures than in the modern industrial world. Maybe we have lost some of these abilities because we no longer need them: telephones and television have superseded telepathy; maps and global positioning systems have replaced the sense of direction. And perceptiveness is not cultivated in our educational system. Indeed the existence of unexplained powers is not only ignored but often denied.

Nevertheless, human ‘sixth senses’ have not gone away. They look more natural, more biological, when they are seen in the light of animal behaviour. Much that appears ‘paranormal’ at present looks normal when we expand our ideas of normality. But we need to expand our view of physics as well as of biology if these phenomena are to be explained at a more fundamental level.

 Telepathy from people to animals usually occurs only when there are close emotional bonds. This may well be an important factor in human telepathy too. My hypothesis is that these bonds depend on fields that link together members of a social group, called social fields. These are one type of a more general class of fields called morphic fields (described in detail in my book The Presence of the Past). These bonds continue to link members of the social group together even when they are far apart, beyond the range of sensory communication, and can serve as a medium through which telepathic communications can pass.

Morphic fields may also underlie the sense of direction. Animals are not only linked to members of their social group by morphic fields, but also to significant places, such as their home. These fields continue to connect them to their home even when they are far away, rather like invisible elastic bands. These bonds can consequently give directional information, “pulling” the animal in a homewards direction.

We have much to learn from our companion animals about animal nature, and about our own.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University, and a Research Fellow of the Royal Society in biochemistry. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California, and lives in London. His book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals is published in paperback by Three Rivers Press at $14. His web site is www.sheldrake.org.

This article was printed in New Renaissance, Vol. 11, No. 4, issue 39, Spring, 2003  Copyright © 2003 by Renaissance Universal, all rights reserved.  Posted on the web on March 22,  2003.

Family Dog Project: New scientific insights into the evolutionary and ethological foundations of dog-human relationship

Family Dog Project

Eötvös Loránd University, Department of Ethology
    Budapest, Hungary

Dog Behaviour Research

 

The science behind a friendship

The Family Dog Project was established in 1994 as the first research group dedicated to investigate the evolutionary and ethological foundations of dog-human relationship.
        
The project was initiated by Professor Emeritus Vilmos Csányi together with Antal Dóka, Ádám Miklósi, and József Topál at the Department of Ethology at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.

          We hypothesised that dogs have evolved to survive in the anthropogenic environment, and our investigations aim at revealing the contribution of humans and dogs to this long-standing partnership. Thus we are not interested solely in the mental abilities of dogs but in all aspects of human and dog behaviour that have strengthened this bond, and may even expand it further. Surprisingly, in our experience this research does not only reveal important insights on dogs but also on us, people.

New scientific insights are fed into practical applications through our Dogs for Humans charity, which educates dogs for the disabled and dog assisted therapy.

The Family Dog Project

Why the dog?

A unique process: domestication for social competence

Due to their domestication the dog became one of the most successful mammals in the last 20-40.000 years of biological evolution. Compared to its living ancestor the wolf, dogs are now more wide-spread on the Earth and live in far greater number. This achievement can be very likely attributed to the fact that the dog has joined to live in the human niche which allowed him access to new resources of food and protection. However this change in the evolution of the dog could have not been achieved without changes in the behaviour that made it able to adapt to the human social environment. Sharing their environment dogs interact with the humans in many ways and living in such a complex social environment is cognitively challenging. It is widely accepted that the adaptational demands of the highly organized social life have led to special socio-cognitive abilities in dogs.
 

Many assume that studying dog-human communication offers a unique opportunity for our understanding the evolution of human communicational skills. This claim is based on the view that the dog can be regarded as unique among domesticates. In fact dogs were not only the firstly domesticated animal, but had from very early on a “special” relationship with humans. The transition from the wild state to the domesticated one changed the selective forces radically leading to the adaptive specialization of dogs to the human environment. It is increasingly assumed that many aspects of dog behaviour can be functionally analogue to the corresponding human trait. Since human environment is challenging for dogs by virtue of its complex social and cognitive nature, dogs had to develop human-compatible social behaviour traits including functional analogues of human communicational skills.

                   

Further reading

                    

Miklósi Á. (2007) Dog Behaviour, Evolution, and Cognition. Oxford University Press.

Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Gácsi, M., Dóka, A., Pongrácz, P., Kubinyi, E., Virányi Zs., Csányi, V. 2009. The dog as a model for understanding human social behavior. Advances in the study of animal behaviour, 39: 71-116.

 

Research Projects

Wolf-dog comparisons

Differences between hand-raised wolves and dogs indicate that social attraction, synchronizing behaviour and communicative abilities of dogs changed markedly during the process of domestication.
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Dog-human attachment

Attachment between dog and owner is analogous to that of a human infant and his/her caregiver. The development of attachment is not restricted to a “sensitive period”.
More...

 

Social learning

Dogs are able to learn through observation both from humans and other dogs, also in cases when the goal of the activity is not evident.
More...

Social cognition

Dogs are very sensitive to human social cues which often mediate their learning about the environment.
More...

Physical cognition

In order to find food, catch a prey, defend a territory or make a burrow wolves and dogs need to know something about the physical lows of their environment. Often such skills are also referred to as ecological cognition because they may differ among species.
More...

Visual communication

Dogs are able to utilize a wide range of human communicative gestures.
More...

Acoustic communication

Various acustic parameters of barks correlate with assumed emotional content.
More...

Personality

At the behavioural level dogs share many aspects of human personality traits. Some of these are associated with highly polymorphic genes.
More...

Artificial companions

Ethology, in particular the study of dog behaviour, could provide important insights in the development of synthetic companions or embodied robots.
More...

Acoustic communication

 

 

Although it is one of the most conspicuous features of dog behavior, barking has received very little attention from animal behaviorists, ethologists or from an applied perspective. Emerging new research has indicated that in the repertoire of dog vocalizations barking has unique features by showing wide ranges of acoustic parameters like frequency, tonality and rhythmicity. According to the new experimental data, barking is strongly context dependent, and is informative at least for humans. At the same time, there are still only a few indications for intra-specific communication with barking in the dog.

We assume that dog barking emerged through selective processes in which human preference for certain acoustic aspects of the vocalization might have been of paramount importance. We call for a more experiment-oriented approach in the study of dog vocalization that could shed light on the possible communicative function of these acoustic signals.

Dogs, just like their wild relatives, have a rich vocal repertoire, including not only barking, but also other types of vocalizations. We have recently started to investigate the role of growls in dog-dog communication, especially in respect of the possible referential content of these signals.

Referentiality means that a signal contains information about not only the signaller’s inner state, but some part of the outer environment too. Growls are suitable subjects for this kind of research, because dogs emit them in various social contexts, both in agonistic and non-agonistic situations. The acoustic communication of animals can be also interesting from the aspect of researching the unique features of human language. In a new series of playback experiments we use artificially constructed sequences of dog barks, for testing the sensitivity of dogs to particular language-features, like recursivity.

Further reading

Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Molnár, Cs., Csányi, V. 2005. Human listeners are able to classify dog barks recorded in different situations. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 119: 136-144. (pdf)

Pongrácz, P., Molnár, Cs., Miklósi, Á. 2006. Acoustic parameters of dog barks carry emotional information for humans. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 100: 228-240. (pdf)

Molnár, Cs., Pongrácz, P., Dóka, A., Miklósi, Á. 2006. Can humans discriminate between dogs on the base of the acoustic parameters of barks? Behavioural Processes, 73: 76-83. (pdf)

Molnár, Cs., Kaplan, F., Roy, P., Pachet, F., Pongrácz, P., Dóka, A., Miklósi, Á. 2008. Classification of dog barks: a machine learning approach. Animal Cognition, 11: 389–400. (pdf)

Maros, K., Pongrácz, P., Bárdos, Gy., Molnár, Cs., Faragó, T., Miklósi, Á. 2008. Dogs can discriminate barks from different situations. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 114: 159–167. (pdf)

 

Artificial companions

Ethology, in particular the study of dog behaviour, could provide important insights in the development of synthetic companions or embodied robots. Although Reto U. Schneider listed our work with AIBO robot among the maddest experiments in science, those observations have clearly established the limitation of that robotic pet when it comes to interactions with conspecifics (Kubinyi et al 2004). Interestingly, both dogs and AIBO can be taught by clicker training (Kaplan et al 2002), however, both adults and children seem to find the AIBO less interesting as they disrupt playing with this toy earlier in comparison to a dog puppy (Kerepesi et al 2005). Actually, building robotic pets that mimic real animals may not be the way forward.

We aim to develop a new interdisciplinary science, ethorobotics, that is interested in whether and how the control and dynamics of animal behaviour can be utilized to build better robots which however are not copycats of real animals. We hope that detailed modelling of the social behaviour of the dog could advance also the field of robotics. But we do not want to replace pet dogs by building robots, these two creatures should play different functions in our lives. 

Further reading

Kaplan, F., Oudeyer, P.-Y., Kubinyi, E., Miklósi, Á. 2002. Robotic clicker training. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 38: 197-206. (pdf)

Kubinyi, E., Miklósi, Á., Kaplan, F., Gácsi, M., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2004. Social behaviour of dogs encountering AIBO, an animal-like robot in a neutral and in a feeding situation. Behavioural Processes, 65: 231-239. (pdf)

Kerepesi, A., Kubinyi, E., Jonsson, G.K., Magnusson, M.S., Miklósi, Á. 2006. Behavioural comparison of human-animal (dog) and human-robot (AIBO) interactions. Behavioural Processes, 73: 92-99. (pdf)

 

Dog-human attachment

 

Attachment is a very important concept for animals that live in closed groups since group activities depend on the actual relationships among the members. Some forms of social learning or cooperation take place only if there is a close relationship between two animals.

Psychologists have found that there is a special bond between the mother and her infant, and not only the quality of this relationship varies from one individual mother to the next but later children's performance in the school, for example cooperative willingness etc, seems to depend on the quality of this relationship.

The most striking feature of the social life of dogs is that they seem to prefer joining human groups. The dog-human relationship has a long evolutionary history and this could be based both on dogs’ evolutionary heritage, being the descendants of wolves, and on changes which took place during their adaptation to living with humans. However, the notion that the dog is just a tamed version of the wolf and the affiliative behaviour of dogs towards human is simply the manifestation of a wolf-like behaviour in an interspecific context is not really supported by current knowledge. Recent evidence suggests that domestication led to significant changes in the social-affiliative behaviour system of dogs and these changes served as the basis of the evolutionary development of dog-human relationship.         In order to test dog-human attachment we have utilized the experimental developed by Mary Ainsworth (Strange Situation Test, 1969) for studying behavioural criteria of human infant-parent bond. This experimental approach offers direct comparisons between the behavioural manifestation of attachment behaviour in dogs and human children. We have found that dogs (both puppies and adult ones) displayed a specific reaction towards their owners, but not towards a stranger, by looking for them in their absence and making rapid and enduring contact upon their return. They also preferred to play with the owner, and decreased play activity in the absence of the owner.

Follow-up work provided evidence that this pattern of attachment is stable over at least one year and is independent of the peculiarities of the testing location. An important further analogy to the human case has been revealed by observing the emergence of attachment behaviour in shelter dogs. These observations suggest that dogs that have been deprived of human contact (adult shelter dogs) are able and motivated to initiate a new relationship rapidly after a short duration of social contact with humans.

More recent results show, that in contrast to 4-month-old dog pups, grey wolf cubs of the same age did not fulfil the criteria for attachment to human. Despite being hand-raised and socialized to an extreme level (in contact with their owners 20-24h per day for the first 3-4 months of their life), these hand-reared grey wolf pups did not seem to discriminate between their caregiver and a stranger greeting them when left alone in an unfamiliar enclosure. It seems that unlike dogs, the human caregiver does not act as a ‘secure base’ for wolves in stressful situations. These observed differences between wolves and dogs show that the emergence of ‘infant-like’ attachment in dogs is not (only) due to social experience during early exposure to humans.

Attachment has also another interesting effect: The attached individuals seem to develop some kind of dependence toward the attachment figure. This means that in a problem situation their first strategy is to seek the help of the attachment figure before attending the problem itself. This finding is often interpreted (in popular literature) as the 'pet dogs' being 'stupid' but this is not true! In contrast, it means that dogs living in close relationship with their owner prefer to wait for the other to do the job for them, and only if this 'strategy' fails are they willing to solve the problem themselves. In other words dogs are very flexible in using social strategies.

In sum our findings on the attachment behaviour point to a characteristic selective responsiveness to the human caregiver (owner) in dogs, and this supports the view that attachment is a functionally distinct component of the social behaviour of the dog showing striking functional behavioural similarities to that of described in human infants.

Further reading

Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 1997. Dog-human relationship affects problem solving behavior in the dog. Anthrozoös, 10: 214-224. (pdf)

Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 1998. Attachment behaviour in dogs: a new application of Ainsworth's (1969) Strange Situation Test. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112: 219-229. (pdf)

Gácsi, M., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Dóka, A., Csányi, V. 2001. Attachment behaviour of adult dogs (Canis familiaris) living at rescue centres: Forming new bonds. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 423-431. (pdf)

Naderi, Sz., Miklósi, Á., Dóka, A., Csányi, V. 2002. Does dog-human attachment affect their inter-specific cooperation? Acta Biologica Hungarica, 53: 537-550.

Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Virányi, Zs., Kubinyi, E., Csányi, V. 2005. Attachment to humans: a comparative study on hand-reared wolves and differently socialized dog puppies. Animal Behaviour, 70: 1367-1375. (pdf)

Personality

 

 

Personality is often defined as an individual's distinctive pattern of behaviour (besides feeling and thinking) that is consistent across time and situations. Personality studies in dogs have become very popular in the last decade. Dog personality is a matter of great public concern, and besides theoretical interest, it has a wide range of practical applications, including significant influence on the dog-human bond.

 

Despite the increased interest, at present there is neither standard methodology nor standard terminology in dog personality studies, therefore we had to work out our own methodology. In the following we present our dog personality studies based on questionnaires and behaviour tests.

 

1. Dog and owner demographic characteristics and dog personality trait associations The aim of this study was to analyze the relationships between four personality traits of dogs (calmness, trainability, dog sociability and boldness) and dog and owner demographics on a large sample size with 14,004 individuals. German speaking dog owners filled in an online questionnaire in German which was advertised in the “Dogs” magazine (www.dogs-magazin.de). We found multiple associations between four traits (calmness/emotinal stability, trainability/openness, dog sociality and boldness) and demographic variables such as age, sex, neutered status or the gender of the owners.

 

2. Cross-Cultural Comparisons Cross-cultural comparisons of dog behavior are limited. We compared the questionnaire responses of German shepherd owners in Hungary and the United States (Wan, 2009, in press). We found for example, that American owners were more likely to keep their dogs indoors during the day and at night, to report that their dogs were kept as pets, and to engage their dogs in a greater number of training types (e.g. conformation training, agility training). Concerning the behavior, American owners reported higher scores than Hungarian owners on the confidence and aggressiveness scales of our survey (diffrent from the above one).

 

3. Personality trait and gene polymorphism associations At the behavioural level dogs share many aspects of human personality traits. Some of these are associated with highly polymorphic genes. Studies suggest that the dog could be a very valuable natural model for behaviour-gene associations in humans. In recent years molecular genetics has begun to identify certain neurotransmitter-associated genes, called candidate genes, for quantitative behavioural traits. According to this model, complex behavioural traits such as activity, impulsivity, and aggression are determined by various genes which interact additively or nonadditively. Recent research has revealed a number of allele polimorphism in candidate gene in dogs. Based on the human parallels intensive search for behavioural correlates has been started. Dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene polymorphism was found to be significantly associated with the “activity” and "social impulsivity" trait in the dog in a population of German shepherds. Subsequent analysis in in vitro assays showed that alleles differ in functional properties.

 

This was revealed both by questionnaire-based evaluations and behavioural tests. Behavioural tests are independent largely from the perception biases of the observer, and provide the behavioural elements that are necessary for the implementation of dogs' behaviour in robots. We developed a test battery with 14 subtests, named Family Dog Test, for measuring individual variability in dogs. We found that the Liveliness trait obtaind by the test battery is associated with the tyrozine-hydroxilase intron 4 polymorphism in German shepherds.

 

4. Environmental effects on the personality of dog Laboratory dogs are frequently used in scientific studies. The contrast between the quality of life of laboratory and family dogs is salient. Laboratory dogs are kept in a highly restricted environment, in a limited area (4 nm2 for 1-2 dogs). Usually they do not have human contact except with their caretakers, once a day in feeding and cleaning time. We tested laboratory beagles and family begales in the Family Dog Test (see above), and compared their behaviour. We found that there was no difference in the Liveliness of the two populations, but Playfulness, Sociality, and Neuroticism significantly differed.

 

Further reading

 

Héjjas, K., Vas, J., Topál, J., Szántai, E., Rónai, Zs., Székely, A., Kubinyi, E., Horváth, Zs., Sasvári-Székely, M., Miklósi, Á. 2007. Association of polymorphisms in the dopamine D4 receptor gene and the activity-impulsivity endophenotype in dogs. Animal Genetics, 38: 629–633. (pdf)

Héjjas, K., Vas, J., Kubinyi, E., Sasvári-Székely, M., Miklósi, Á., Rónai, Z. 2007. Novel repeat polymorphisms of the dopaminergic neurotransmitter genes among dogs and wolves. Mammalian Genome, 18: 871-879. (pdf)

Héjjas, K., Kubinyi, E., Rónai, Zs., Székely, A., Vas, J., Miklósi, Á., Sasvári-Székely, M., Kereszturi, E. 2009. Molecular and behavioral analysis of the intron 2 repeat polymorphism in canine dopamine D4 receptor gene. Genes, Brain, Behaviour, 8: 330-336. (pdf)

Kubinyi, E., Turcsán, B., Miklósi, Á. 2009. Dog and owner demographic characteristics and dog personality trait associations. Behavioural Processes, 81: 392-401. (pdf)

 

Social cognition

 

Some argue that dogs’ complex social skills have been selected for during their co-habitation with humans. Indeed, dogs may have to rely on sophisticated social abilities in order to get along in their relationships. However, instead of reporting a list of anecdotes researchers need to find well controlled methods to reveal the cognitive mechanisms that may operate in the dogs’ mind. We have not yet convincing evidence to say that dogs are able to read our minds but nevertheless they seem to be very skilful readers of our behaviour. In most cases this “trick” also does the job.
The attention of humans (the direction of looking – head orientation) has an important effect on the dogs’ behaviour. Dogs take human attention into account when they retrieve objects or respond to commands. In the latter, they can also figure out whether a command was intended to them or somebody else.

Dogs are also very good in displaying rituals and following simple rules. Not surprisingly they seem to get engaged easily a “hide & search” game, and will look for the object if actually nothing was hidden. Human behaviour often becomes a sample to which dogs match their behaviour. Thus sometimes a pointless short detour by the owner during the daily walk gets also included in the routine of the dog.


In particular situations dogs can take into account what the their owner know or does not know, however they observe some minute visible differences in the owners’ behaviour rather than being able to think about thoughts of the person. Our results show for example, that adult pet dogs, similarly to 3-year-old children, were able to complement information that was missing in the human. However whether dogs (and apes/children) used ‘mindreading’ or solved the task by some ‘insightful’ learning about observable behavioural cues of the human (behaviour-reading) is not clear. These results support the claim that dogs are able to provide humans with information that helps them in obtaining a goal; or, alternatively, dogs can rely on human behavioural cues indicating the lack of certain ‘knowledge’.

Further reading

 

Watson, J.S., Gergely, G., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Sárközi, Zs., Csányi, V. 2001. Distinguishing logic from association in the solution of an invisible displacement task by children and dogs: Using negation of disjunction. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 219-226. (pdf)
Kubinyi, E., Miklósi, Á., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2003. Social mimetic behaviour and social anticipation in dogs: preliminary results. Animal Cognition, 6: 57-63. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Varga, O., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2004. Are readers of our face readers of our minds? Dogs (Canis familiaris) show situation-dependent recognition of human's attention. Animal Cognition, 7: 144-153. (pdf)
Virányi, Zs., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 2004. Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans’ attentional focus. Behavioural Processes, 66: 161-172. (pdf)
Miklósi, Á., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2004. Comparative social cognition: What can dogs teach us? Animal Behaviour, 67: 995-1004. (pdf)
Topál, J., Kubinyi, E., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á. 2005. Obeying social rules: A comparative study on dogs and humans. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 3: 213-239. (pdf)
Virányi, Zs., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 2006. A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children. Animal Cognition, 9: 13-26. (pdf)
Topál, J., Erdőhegyi, Á., Mányik R., Miklósi Á. 2006. Mindreading in a dog: an adaptation of a primate ‘mental attribution’ study. International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy,6: 365-379. (pdf)
Erdőhegyi, Á., Topál, J., Virányi, Zs., Miklósi Á. 2007. Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use. Animal Behaviour, 74: 725-737. (pdf)

 

Physical cognition

 

In order to find food, catch a prey, defend a territory or make a burrow wolves and dogs need to know something about the physical lows of their environment. Often such skills are also referred to as ecological cognition because they may differ among species.

Dogs are able to trace and follow objects both visually and on the basis of smell. The former ability is often referred to in cognitive terms as “object permanence” because it is assumed that such tasks can only be accomplished if the dog is able to build a “mental image” of the object. Such skills could be useful both for the wolf and the dog when they hunt for rapidly moving prey on a complex terrain.
Many other experiments are aimed to find out about the navigation skills of dogs and wolves. There are many interesting anecdotes how wolves find their way around on their territory, how they optimise seemingly their way of approaching the prey, and make short cuts or detours depending on the obstacles they face. It is however more difficult to find the cognitive basis for such skills in the laboratory or at least under controlled condition.

Pet dogs living in the city seem not to be very professional, for example, in relatively simple detour tasks. They need about 5-6 trials to learn how to get a piece of food from behind a 3 m long fence. They seem to have also problems with transferring their knowledge about the detours to other similar situations and it is also not clear how early (“puppyhood”) or general experience may enhance the skills of dogs getting around.

Recent work has also shown that humans’ social and communicative influence also modifies the ability of dogs to process environmental cues. It seems that the selection for enhanced preference for humans and human actions may inhibit the dogs to react optimally to challenges in the environment if manipulated by humans.

Further Reading

Watson, J.S., Gergely, G., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Sárközi, Zs., Csányi, V. 2001. Distinguishing logic from association in the solution of an invisible displacement task by children and dogs: Using negation of disjunction. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 219-226. (pdf)
Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi, E., Gurobi, K., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2001. Social learning in dogs: The effect of a human demonstrator on the performance of dogs (Canis familiaris) in a detour task. Animal Behaviour, 62: 1109-1117. (pdf)
Erdőhegyi, Á., Topál, J., Virányi, Zs., Miklósi Á. 2007. Dog-logic: inferential reasoning in a two-way choice task and its restricted use. Animal Behaviour, 74: 725-737. (pdf)

 

Social learning

 

 

There are many cases and definitions for social learning – in general we consider an act social learning, when there is a demonstrator, who does something, while at least one observer witnesses this action, and later the observer will do something similar to the demonstrator’s action, while without demonstration this similarity would be less likely.

Dogs are excellent subjects for examining both interspecific and within-species social learning. As dogs form well-working social units with humans, it is easy to use human demonstrators in particular tasks, where dogs should learn by observation from the humans’ actions. At the same time trained dog demonstrators can be used also for tasks, where we expect dogs to learn from each others exemplar.

In several experiments we found that dogs learn easily from humans in many tasks, like detouring a V-shaped fence, opening a problem box, or operating a two-action device. Dogs follow human actions also in the ‘Do as I do’ paradigm, where they show ability for generalization.

We have demonstrated that dogs are able to use social information provided by humans in problem solving situations. Naive dogs learn a detour task faster if they can observe a demonstrator making the detour. Moreover they can use socially provided information to overcome previously learned but now maladaptive behavioural routines. The results show that other factors, like social rank can influence the dogs’ performance in social learning tasks: high ranked (dominant) dogs learned more easily from a human demonstrator, while subordinate dogs learned much more effective from a dog demonstrator.

Finally, it seems that dogs have special kind of receptivity to behaviour cues of human „teaching” which process ensures efficient transfer of information, even when its content is cognitively ’non-transparent’, arbitrary and actually does not have any perceivable adaptive value at all.

Further reading

 

 

Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi, E., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2003. Interaction between individual experience and social learning in dogs. Animal Behaviour, 65: 595-603. (pdf)
Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Timár-Geng, K., Csányi, V. 2003. Preference for copying unambiguous demonstrations in dogs. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117: 337-343. (pdf)
Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi, E., Gurobi, K., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2001. Social learning in dogs: The effect of a human demonstrator on the performance of dogs (Canis familiaris) in a detour task. Animal Behaviour, 62: 1109-1117. (pdf)
Topál, J., Byrne, R.W., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 2006. Reproducing human actions and action sequences: “Do as I Do!” in a dog. Animal Cognition, 9: 355-367. (pdf)
Kubinyi, E., Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á. 2009. Dog as a model for studying con- and heterospecific social learning. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 4: 31-41. (pdf)

Visual communication

 

 

In humans the pointing gesture can take many forms in everyday life. Many independent studies have established that dogs comprehend the human pointing gesture and we showed that dogs are able to rely on more subtle human visual cues like head turning, nodding or bowing. Moreover they can generalize to a certain degree from familiar pointing gestures to unfamiliar ones, and thereby they can use also novel pointing gestures as a cue. In some cases dogs seem to regard the pointing gesture indeed as being a communicative act, as in the experimental setting they tended to choose the bowl pointed at by the human even when it was contradicted by direct olfactory or visual information.

We showed that the comprehension of the human pointing in dogs may require only very limited and rapid early learning to fully develop.         In a more recent study we found that although dogs perform well in the case of many different pointing gestures they perform poorly in the case of the gestures in which from the observer’s point of view the pointing arm and hand stays within the silhouette of the body. This result made us to conclude that for the dogs the protrusion of a body part of the body torso provides the key feature of the signal. Examining this question more closely in a very recent study we found that making the gesture visually more conspicuous could have an enhancing effect in cases where the gesture does not stick out from the body torso. On the basis of these results it seems that the most informative sign for the dogs is not even the line of the pointing arm but a clearly visible patch, which appears conspicuously and asymmetrically at one side of the body torso.         We have provided evidence that during the domestication process, selection for two factors under genetic influence (visual cooperation and focused attention) have led independently to increased comprehension of human communicational cues in dogs.                 In a comparative study we revealed that 3-year-old children are able to rely on the direction of the index finger, and show the strongest ability to generalize to unfamiliar gestures. Although some capacity to generalize is also evident in younger children and dogs, especially the latter appear biased in the use of protruding body parts as directional signals.                 There are also some indications that dogs have a strong propensity to initialize communicative interactions with humans by using visual and sometimes also acoustic signals functionally similar to the ones used by humans. Several studies have demonstrated that also dogs “point” to humans, e.g. when dogs when facing an unsolvable situation use attention-getting behaviour. For example, after looking at the owner, dogs display gaze alternation between the location of the target object and the owner. A similar phenomenon was observed in a separate experiment, in which dogs, after having learnt how to solve a task, were prevented to get the target object the same way. Characteristically, after a few attempts most dogs stopped trying and looked at their owner. According to the results of these studies gaze alternation is a typical sign of dogs’ “pointing behaviour”, and it proved to be also very effective in the sense that humans can extract the information of it about the actual location of something that the dog wants to obtain.

Further reading

 

 

Miklósi, Á., Polgárdi, R., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 1998. Use of experimenter-given cues in dogs. Animal Cognition, 1: 113-121. (pdf)
Soproni, K., Miklósi, Á., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2001. Comprehension of human communicative signs in pet dogs. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 115: 122-126. (pdf)
Szetei, V., Miklósi, Á., Topál, J., Csányi V. 2003. When dogs seem to lose their nose: an investigation on the use of visual and olfactory cues in communicative context between dog and owner. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 83: 141-152. (pdf)
Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi E., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Virányi, Zs., Csányi, V. 2003. A simple reason for a big difference: wolves do not look back at humans but dogs do. Current Biology, 13: 763-766. (pdf)
Virányi, Zs., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V. 2004. Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans’ attentional focus. Behavioural Processes, 66: 161-172. (pdf)
Miklósi, Á., Soproni, K. 2006. A comparative analysis of animals' understanding of the human pointing gesture. Animal Cognition, 9: 81-93. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., Kara, E., Belényi, B., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á. 2009 The effect of development and individual differences in pointing comprehension of dogs. Animal Cognition, 12: 471-479. (pdf)
Lakatos, G., Soproni, K., Dóka, A., Miklósi, Á. 2009. A comparative approach to dogs’ (Canis familiaris) and human infants’ comprehension of various forms of pointing gestures. Animal Cognition, 12: 621-631. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., McGreevy, P., Kara, E., Miklósi, Á. 2009. Effects of selection for cooperation and attention in dogs. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 5: 31. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., Győri, B., Virányi, Zs., Kubinyi, E., Range, F., Belényi, B., Miklósi, Á. 2009. Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills. PLoS ONE 4 (8): e6584. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone. 0006584.

Wolf-dog comparisons

 

 

Differences between hand-raised wolves and dogs indicate that social attraction, synchronizing behaviour and communicative abilities of dogs changed markedly during the process of domestication.

Raising wolf cubs and dog puppies in an identical way re¬vealed many specific social behavioural differences between the two species, especially with regard to their interactions with humans. Even at an early age (3-5 weeks), dogs dis¬played more communicative signals (e.g. vocalization, tail wagging, gazing at the human’s face) and were less aggres¬sive and avoidant than wolves, although the general activity level did not differ between the two species.

Due to human fostering, 5-week-old wolves showed a clear preference for their caregiver in a preference test, if the other stimulus was another human. However, in contrast to dogs, wolves’ preferences for the caregiver did not develop into a behavioural pattern that could be categorized as attachment. In contrast to hand-reared dogs and pet dogs, individually socialized, hand-reared wolves did not show highly different responsive¬ness to their caregiver compared to an unfamiliar human. While wolves did not display characteristic patterns of attachment toward their caregiver, their preference for her remained strong at the age of 1 or 2 years.          Our young hand–reared dogs, but not wolves, were able to use more difficult human pointing gestures (e.g., momentary distal pointing) spon­taneously. Young wolves needed massive training to reach the same level of success that dogs reached instantly. The reason for this difference might be that in contrast to dogs it was very difficult to establish gaze-to-gaze contact with the wolves; therefore, wolves were less able to attend to an experimenter’s gestures for an extended duration. Dogs are inclined to look at our faces, and this inclination provides them with a broadened opportunity for learning about hu­man gestures. However, socialized adult wolves can utilize human communicative signals. Thus the dog-wolf difference should be interpreted as a developmental change in the timing of some social behaviours rather than an overall difference in the ability.

 

Further reading

 

Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi E., Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Virányi, Zs., Csányi, V. 2003. A simple reason for a big difference: wolves do not look back at humans but dogs do. Current Biology, 13: 763-766. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., Győri, B., Miklósi, Á., Virányi, Zs., Kubinyi, E., Topál, J., Csányi, V. 2005. Species-specific differences and similarities in the behavior of hand-raised dog and wolf pups in social situations with humans. Developmental Psychobiology, 47: 111-122. (pdf)
Kubinyi, E., Virányi, Zs., Miklósi, Á. 2007. Comparative social cognition: From wolf and dog to humans. Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 2: 26-46. (pdf)
Virányi, Zs., Gácsi, M., Kubinyi, E., Topál, J., Belényi, B., Ujfalussy, D., Miklósi, Á. 2008. Comprehension of human pointing gestures in young human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) and dogs (Canis familiaris). Animal Cognition, 11: 373-387. (pdf)
Topál, J., Gácsi, M., Miklósi, Á., Virányi, Zs., Kubinyi, E., Csányi, V. 2005. Attachment to humans: a comparative study on hand-reared wolves and differently socialized dog puppies. Animal Behaviour, 70: 1367-1375. (pdf)
Gácsi, M., Győri, B., Virányi, Zs., Kubinyi, E., Range, F., Belényi, B., Miklósi, Á. 2009. Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills. PLoS ONE 4 (8): e6584. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone. 0006584.

 

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