Research with dogs

The dog as the focus of research – Why?

One aim of the Department of Comparative and Developmental Psychology is to investigate the evolution of different cognitive processes. The comparative approach includes the study of a variety of animal species. Although most of our work is done with the great apes, we also investigate other species such as goats, seals, and dogs. For a number of reasons, the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is a very interesting model for investigating different questions regarding the evolution of cognitive abilities. The fact that dogs have been living with humans for at least 15.000 years may have led to the selection of cognitive abilities by humans or even the co-evolution of dogs’ cognitive abilities with those of humans. We know from different studies that dogs are sensitive to the attentional state of humans. We also know that dogs understand communicative cues. Those abilities have not been found in nonhuman primates and wolves.

Research

Dog research at the Max Planck Institute is strictly observational. There is no invasive research of any kind. We give the dogs various tasks to solve and observe how they interact with their environment, other dogs or a human. There is always a reward, usually a treat or a toy. Research focuses on the following topics:

1. Social learning

The main question is whether and how dogs learn from other dogs or humans. In our studies we allow dogs to observe other dogs or humans solving problems before they themselves are presented with the same problem.

2. Human-dog communication

The main question is for instance what kind of human-given cues dogs can use to locate rewards. In these studies we hide food from a dog in one of several hiding locations and then indicate to the dog where the food is hidden using a gesture or cue (e.g. pointing). We have found that dogs are more skillful than wolves and even chimpanzees. We are now particularly interested in comparing the differences between several breeds in their ability to use human gestures.

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3. Visual perspective taking

The main question is whether dogs are sensitive to what others can and cannot see.
In our tests the dogs are able to see an object that the human - who is present - cannot see because the object is occluded by a barrier from the human’s view. We are interested whether dogs take advantage of this additional information. It turned out, for instance, that dogs eat forbidden food more frequently when the human cannot see them.

4. Metacognitive abilities

The main question is whether dogs have access to their own perceptual and knowledge states. Here, the focus is not on what dogs understand about others, but on what dogs know about themselves. The question is, for example, whether they are aware of what they have seen in the past.

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