Tag Archives: cognition

Training dogs for bomb detection

Posted on August 2, 2013 | 2 comments

Unfortunately, we live in a world where people still build bombs to kill and maim. Dogs have traditionally been trained to detect explosive devices by learning to detect specific odours and then to signal their handler.

A detection dog in action

The process of training a bomb detection dog is slow because the dog is trained to identify each scent individually. In countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, homemade devices are made using mixtures of explosives.

With a grant from the Office of Naval Research, researchers at the University of Lincoln (UK) will investigate whether explosive detection dogs are capable of learning by categorisation, a cognitive process that is thought to play a major role in the way humans and animals naturally process new information.

The study will explore whether dogs can be trained to recognise the significance of a group of odours, rather than having to learn each scent individually.

Researcher Helen Zulch says, “In this study we will be testing whether a dog can be taught a general rule for a group of odours and then apply that knowledge to a new situation, involving scents it has never encountered. We know dogs can categorise visual stimuli, so the aim of this study is to find out whether dogs are able to categorise odours in a similar manner.”

If successful, the research will underpin new training approaches that will accelerate the process of training detector dogs.

Source: University of Lincoln media release

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Posted in research

Tagged Afghanistan, bomb detection, cognition, detection dogs, Iraq, training, University of Lincoln

Your dog understands ‘Just Do It’

Posted on July 18, 2013 | Leave a comment

New research helps to confirm the cognitive abilities of our dogs.

Claudia Fugazza and Adám Miklósi, from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary have shown that dogs can learn, retain and replay actions taught by humans after a short delay. Because the dogs were able to undertake the actions after a delay (during which they were purposely distracted), the research proves that dogs have an ability to ‘encode’ and ‘recall.’

photo courtesy of Springer Select

The study involved eight adult pet dogs who were trained by their owners with the ‘Do as I do’ method and then made to wait for short intervals (5-30 seconds) before they were allowed to copy the observed human action, for example walk around a bucket or ring a bell.

The researchers observed whether the dogs were able to imitate human actions after delays ranging from 40 seconds to 10 minutes, during which time the dogs were distracted by being encouraged to take part in other activities. The researchers were looking for evidence of the dogs’ ability to encode and recall the demonstrated action after an interval.

The tests show that dogs are able to reproduce familiar actions and novel actions after different delays ̶ familiar actions after intervals as long as ten minutes; novel tasks after a delay of one minute. This ability was seen in different conditions, even if they were distracted by different activities during the interval.

Because dogs were able to reproduce the novel actions after a delay and without earlier practice, the researchers believe that dogs have a specific type of long-term memory capability – called ‘declarative memory.’ These are memories involving facts or knowledge which can be consciously recalled.

This study is published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Source: Springer Select media statement

Your dog – strategist?

Posted on February 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

Researcher Juliane Kaminski has published a study which shows that domestic dogs are much more likely to steal food when they think nobody can see them.

Many owners may think ‘so what – I already knew this’ – but Dr Kaminski’s systematic study helps to prove that dogs have the capacity to understand the human’s point of view.

Juliane Kaminski and her dog, Ambula (courtesy of University of Portland)

The study found that when a human forbids a dog from taking food, dogs are four times more likely to disobey in a dark room than a lit room, suggesting that they understand humans may not be able to see them take the food.

The tests were complex and involved many variables to rule out that dogs were basing their decisions on simple associative rules, for example, that dark means food. 42 female and 42 male dogs took part in the study.

This is the first study to examine if dogs differentiate between different levels of light when they are developing strategies on whether to steal food.

The research is an incremental step in our understanding of dogs’ ability to think and understand which could, in turn, be of use to those who work with dogs, including the police, the blind and those who use gun dogs, as well as those who keep them as pets.

Dr Kaminski’s study has been published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Source: University of Portsmouth media statement

Dog dreaming

Posted on June 6, 2012 | 2 comments

We’ve all seen our dogs deeply asleep, with paws and legs twitching. There have even been times when my dog puts her head up while sleeping and howls like a wolf. (She usually wakes herself up, too).

Do our dogs dream?

All evidence points to an answer of ‘yes’.

Researchers know, for example, that the EEGs (electroencephalograms) of sleeping dogs show brain wave activity similar to humans during sleep. There is a period of sleep known as REM sleep (REM means rapid eye movement) when breathing becomes irregular and the eyes twitch. Sound familiar?

When humans have been wakened during REM sleep, they report that they have been dreaming and so there is no reason to think that our dogs aren’t dreaming.

Matthew Wilson, Associate Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that animals have complex dreams and are able to retain and recall long sequences of events while they are asleep.

His work involved rats and monitoring their brain wave activity when they were asleep and awake. He also tracked the effect of sleep on learning of repetitive tasks.

Professor Wilson has said of his work “dreams are the ultimate off-line experience. This work demonstrates that animals are capable of re-evaluating their experiences when they are not in the midst of them.”

By the way, dogs, cats and rabbits are crepuscular which means that they naturally tend to be more active at dawn and at dusk. Humans are diurnal which means they are most active during the day (which explains why night shifts are so hard on people). Dogs seem to adjust their own sleep habits to match those of their owners.

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Posted in dog care, research

Tagged animals, brain wave activity, brain waves, cognition, crepuscular, diurnal, dogs, dreaming, EEG, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matthew Wilson, MIT, rapid eye movement, rats, REM