Observational Learning in the Domestic Dog (Canis familiaris)

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

Second Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Bauer, Gordon

Keywords

Observational Learning, Dog, Social Cognition, Domestication, Learning

Area of Concentration

Biology

Abstract

Social learning is an increasingly studied field of psychology due to its ability to shed light on the manifestation of intelligence in other animals, as well as its ability to examine the evolution of human cognition. It has been argued that the complexities of human cognition have evolved to cope with the demands of an increasingly complex social environment. Therefore, social cognition has been studied in other highly social organisms. While much of the attention has been given to non-human primates, dogs (Canis familiaris) are exceptional candidates in which to look for social cognitive skills for two reasons. First, dogs have evolved from the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus) which in the wild lives in complex social groups and participates in co-operative hunting. Second, dogs have been part of the domestication process for over 14,000 years and possibly as long as 135,000 years during which the traits favoring the dog's ability to learn from humans and form close social bonds have been selected (Fox, 1978; Vila, Maldonado, & Wayne, 1999). Previous experiments have established evidence that dogs can learn tasks by observing their owners and that dogs can learn by observing other dogs (Kubinyi, Miklosi, Josef, & Csanyi, 2003; McKinley & Young, 2002; Pongracz, Miklosi, Kubinyi, Gurobi, Toal, & Csanyi, 2001; Rooney & Bradshaw, 2006; Slabbert & Rassa, 1997). However, a dog's ability to learn from a human and dog model has not been compared. A comparison model is important in order to establish the extent of the dog's adaptation to living predominantly with humans, rather than other dogs. This thesis will describe the dog's evolution and domestication from the wolf and present several studies dealing with social cognition in the domestic dog. It will then culminate in an experiment that compares the success of observational learning in three groups of dogs: Experimental Group 1, dogs observing human model; Experimental Group 2, dogs observing a dog model; and Control Group, dogs observing no model. Ultimately this thesis ssupports the claims of observational learning in domestic dogs by finding significant difference in performance between both experimental groups and the control group.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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