Study of Cognitive Processes Used by Dogs in Spatial Tasks

Abstract

In this paper, I propose to describe one part of a research program concerning the processes through which animals gain knowledge of space. The behavioral adaptation of dogs to relatively unconstrained spatial learning tasks was studied in order to find out what animals' actions can reflect about the type of knowledge they are able to acquire concerning their surroundings. Before describing any dogs' results it is necessary to make some remarks about the principal characteristics of these experiments. 1. The domestication of dogs allowed us to use spatial learning tasks with no apparatus, and in which the movements of dogs are unconstrained. These tasks seemed more natural since the presence of apparatus must modify the way in which an animal perceives the spatial environment and limit considerably the movement it can make. 2. A l l the tasks had multiple solutions, that is to say the animal could obtain the maximun reward in a number of different ways. 4 particularly interesting characteristic is the fact that these tasks allow individual differences to appear, which would remain hidden in tasks with a unique solution. 3. The data presented here w i l l not include group comparison but analysis of the evolution of individual subjects' behaviour. . The dogs used in a given experiment were from the same l i t t e r (generally consisting of six siblings). The experiments began when they were three to six months old. The animals were not deprived of food but fed only once a day