Dogs “Imagine” What They’re Smelling When Tracking, Surprised if Mental Image Wrong
Dogs have an imagination, and they use it when tracking a scent. They are surprised and hesitant when the thing they have in mind turns out to be something else when they reach the end of the smell trail.
Dogs create a mental representation of objects that they perceive through smell, a new study shows – and are surprised if what they find at the end of the trail differs from what they expected to find.
Dogs’ excellent sense of smell is well-known, whether it is in the context of searching for people or for contraband substances. However, the question of how dogs understand what they perceive with their sense of smell has largely been unexplored.
In a study published today in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Department for General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience (Institute of Psychology) at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, investigated this question and found evidence that dogs create a “mental representation” of the target when they track a scent trail. In other words, they have an expectation of what they will find at the end of a trail.
Credit: © Petra Jahn
In total, study director Dr. Juliane Bräuer and her staff tested 48 dogs, 25 of whom had training with the police or a search and rescue team and 23 of whom were family dogs without special training. The tests were carried out with the financial support of the Swiss Albert Heim Foundation in the Dog Studies group of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
The dogs first underwent a pre-test, in which two toys were identified for each dog that he or she liked to retrieve. In the test itself, each dog underwent four trials in which he or she followed a scent trail that was drawn with one of the two toys. At the end of the trail, the dogs found either the toy with which the track had been laid (the normal condition) or the dog found the other toy (the surprise condition). Half of the dogs in the first round were given the normal condition, and the other half were given the surprise condition. The behavior of the dogs was filmed during all test runs.
Credit: © Juliane Braeuer and Julia Belger. A ball is not a kong: Odour representation and search behavior in domestic dogs of different education. Journal of Comparative Psychology. DOI: 10.1037/com0000115
“From my experience in other studies, I had assumed that the surprise would be measurable, in that the dogs would behave differently in the surprise condition than they would in the normal condition,” Dr. Bräuer explains regarding her study approach.
However, this “surprise effect” disappeared in the subsequent test runs. This could be because the dogs, no matter which toy they found, were rewarded by playing games, or because the room still smelled of the toys from the previous test runs, despite having been cleaned.
According to Dr. Bräuer’s assessment, the results of the first round of testing are nevertheless an indication that dogs have a mental representation of the target object when tracking a scent, which means that they have a concrete expectation of the target. “The comparison between working dogs and family dogs was also interesting,” adds Dr. Bräuer.
For more information about Juliane Bräuer’s research, please visit the Dog Studies website.
Contacts and sources:
Anne Gibson
Max Planck Institute For The Science Of Human History
Citation: A ball is not a kong: Odour representation and search behavior in domestic dogs of different education
Juliane Braeuer and Julia Belger
Journal of Comparative Psychology , DOI: 10.1037 / com0000115
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2018/03/dogs-imagine-what-theyre-smelling-when.html
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Somebody imagined what was going on in a dog’s brain.