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.
I cannot use any sentences with OUT, WALK or GO or EAT. It makes them insane.. I worry about spelling...
5 small or 5 large?
“Using touch-screen computers with dogs opens up a whole world of possibilities on how to test the cognitive abilities of dogs.”....after about an hour of surfing however, the dogs eventually got bored, when link after link, advertising ‘sexy bitches’, all turned out to be merely pictures of humans.
I think that there are probably quite a few animals that are more intelligent than they are normally given credit for. Geez, even the squirrels in the back yard, know enough to come to the porch and scratch at the door so that my wife will go out and feed them nuts, seeds and corn. The cat even figured out how to open a closed door by fiddling with the latch until it opened. Most dogs are loyal and will display independent thinking if they or someone they care for is in perceived danger.
A recent study of bird songs indicated that the average bird can identify a threat such as a cat or dog and will even describe the threat in detail to other birds in the vicinity by describing the color, size and species of the threat, differentiating between two or more similar animals that are the threat. And all done with song.
One small ... three large ... one very large. Six furry children outside (all large). You could say we love dogs.
Have you ever owned an Afghan Hound? :)
Mine looked very much like this one. Gorgeous. So very dumb...
My Labs watch animal planet...when there are birds on it...
They are curious about the cats...
They ignore fish.
Solly watched the first 10 minutes of Bambi intensely and then got bored.
Curosity is killing me....where's that?
All dogs have the heart of a mastiff when it comes to people they love.
People that don’t love dogs (or some kind of pet) have an attachment disorder.
Do you expect brilliance out of a blond.
Neighbor within walking distance (3/4 mile) has a concrete horse...
Thanks! When the ‘doggie pinger’ gets some time, maybe she could add me to her ‘ping-list’. Furry-kids are all special!
Wow...high maintenance :)
They say the bathroom has less germs than the kitchen.
We all know that dogs recognize our language and know many words but the funniest thing is to talk gibberish and watch Piper continually cock his head back and forth, lol! I've GOT to get a video of him doing it!
My Yorkie, Piper, was 4 years old on Nov 24, this is his favorite spot to watch out for 'bad people'.
Piper is absolutely adorable!
What a sweet pic!
Yes,very. He had to be brushed nearly daily and I can still see the the matted hair despite it...sometimes I could do nothing but cut it away. Poor Nemo. Long live Nemo— even if he was dumb. LOL
I used to live in a neighborhood where the neighbor’s lab would escape every once and awhile and she would come looking for me at the back patio. I’d tell her to get a ball and she would go looking in the garage where she could usually find one. If not she’d come back and I’d tell her to go find a grapefruit (we had trees). Smart dog and fun to play with.
Thank you DC, he’s my ‘baby’ now!
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