Sex differences in dogs’ social learning of spatial information

We used a modified version of the Do as I Do paradigm to investigate dogs’ preference and flexibility in the acquisition of different types of spatial information in social learning situations. When required to match the location of the demonstration, dogs (N = 16) preferentially relied on allocentric information, i.e., the relationship between the location of the demonstration and the various objects surrounding it. However, when allocentric cues were inadequate to solve the task, dogs learned to rely on egocentric information, i.e., the direction—left/right—taken by the human demonstrator. The ease of resorting to the non-preferred egocentric strategy was sex-dependent with males acquiring the egocentric strategy in fewer trials than females. This study shows that dogs rely preferentially on allocentric cues when recalling socially acquired spatial information. However, they are impressively flexible in switching to egocentric strategies according to the task requirements. Whether preference for the allocentric strategy in processing spatial information is embedded in the nature of social learning or restricted to our paradigm is an open question. This study also supports the idea that sex differences in cognitive domains are widespread among mammals and calls for further investigations aimed at shedding light on the evolution, function and mechanisms of such differences.     

Human-like social skills in dogs?

Domestic dogs are unusually skilled at reading human social and communicative behavior--even more so than our nearest primate relatives. For example, they use human social and communicative behavior (e.g. a pointing gesture) to find hidden food, and they know what the human can and cannot see in various situations. Recent comparisons between canid species suggest that these unusual social skills have a heritable component and initially evolved during domestication as a result of selection on systems mediating fear and aggression towards humans. Differences in chimpanzee and human temperament suggest that a similar process may have been an important catalyst leading to the evolution of unusual social skills in our own species. The study of convergent evolution provides an exciting opportunity to gain further insights into the evolutionary processes leading to human-like forms of cooperation and communication.     

Positive affect and learning: exploring the “Eureka Effect” in dogs

Animals may experience positive affective states in response to their own achievements. We investigated emotional responses to problem-solving in dogs, separating these from reactions to rewards per se using a yoked control design. We also questioned whether the intensity of reaction would vary with reward type. We examined the response (behavior and heart rate) of dogs as they learned to gain access to different rewards: (1) food (2) human contact, and (3) dog contact. Twelve beagles were assigned to matched pairs, and each dog served as both an experimental and a control animal during different stages of the experiment. We trained all dogs to perform distinct operant tasks and exposed them to additional devices to which they were not trained. Later, dogs were tested in a new context. When acting as an experimental dog, access to the reward was granted immediately upon completion of trained operant tasks. When acting as a control, access to the reward was independent of the dog’s actions and was instead granted after a delay equal to their matched partner’s latency to complete their task. Thus, differences between the two situations could be attributed to experimental dogs having the opportunity to learn to control access to the reward. Experimental dogs showed signs of excitement (e.g., increased tail wagging and activity) in response to their achievements, whereas controls showed signs of frustration (e.g., chewing of the operant device) in response to the unpredictability of the situation. The intensity of emotional response in experimental dogs was influenced by the reward type, i.e., greatest response to food and least to another dog. Our results suggest that dogs react emotionally to problem-solving opportunities and that tail wagging may be a useful indicator of positive affective states in dogs.     

Does owner handedness influence paw preference in dogs?

Animal Cognition - Handedness has proven to be the most effective and least intrusive measure of laterality in many species. Several studies have investigated paw preference in dogs (Canis...     

Can dogs count?

Numerical competencies have been thoroughly examined in several species, yet relatively few studies have examined such processes in the domestic dog. In an initial experiment, procedures from numerical studies of chimpanzees (0010 and 0015) were adapted for use with 27 domestic dogs. Subjects in these experiments watched as different quantities of food were sequentially dropped into each of two bowls. The subjects were then allowed to select and consume the contents of one of the bowls. Although dogs excelled in a 1 vs 0 condition, their performance failed to significantly surpass chance across all other ratios. In a second experiment with a single subject (a rough collie named Sedona), the procedure was revised so that non-food stimuli were presented simultaneously to the dog on two magnet boards. If Sedona chose the board with the majority of the items, she was rewarded with a piece of food hidden underneath the board. If she made an incorrect choice, she received no reinforcement. Interestingly, Sedona's performance far exceeded that of the dogs in Experiment 1. Implications of these findings for the study of domestic dogs are discussed.     

Which processes are involved in cognitive procedural learning?

Procedural memory is characterised by a relative resistance to pathology, making its assessment of the utmost importance. However, few studies have looked at the cognitive processes involved in cognitive procedural learning. In an initial experiment, we studied the role of different cognitive functions in massed cognitive procedural learning. Our results confirmed the existence of three separate learning phases and, for the first time, demonstrated the involvement of episodic memory and executive functions in the first learning phase. In a second experiment, we studied the effect of distributed learning conditions on the dynamics of procedural learning. This second study confirmed our results but showed that these conditions slow down the process of cognitive procedural learning. Our overall findings call into question the status of functionally autonomous memory system that is currently allotted to procedural memory, and suggest that the role of nonprocedural cognitive components should be taken into account in patient rehabilitation.     

Order or disorder? Impaired Hebb learning in dyslexia

The present study offers an integrative account proposing that dyslexia and its various associated cognitive impairments reflect an underlying deficit in the long-term learning of serial-order information, here operationalized as Hebb repetition learning. In nondyslexic individuals, improved immediate serial recall is typically observed when one particular sequence of items is repeated across an experimental session, a phenomenon known as the Hebb repetition effect. Starting from the critical observation that individuals with dyslexia seem to be selectively impaired in cognitive tasks that involve processing of serial order, the present study is the first to test and confirm the hypothesis that the Hebb repetition effect is affected in dyslexia, even for nonverbal modalities. We present a theoretical framework in which the Hebb repetition effect is assumed to be a laboratory analogue of naturalistic word learning, on the basis of which we argue that dyslexia is characterized by an impairment of serial-order learning that affects language learning and processing.     

Can unconscious knowledge allow control in sequence learning?

This paper investigates the conscious status of both the knowledge that an item is legal (judgment knowledge) and the knowledge of why it is legal (structural knowledge) in sequence learning. We compared ability to control use of knowledge (Process Dissociation Procedure) with stated awareness of the knowledge (subjective measures) as measures of the conscious status of knowledge. Experiment 1 showed that when people could control use of judgment knowledge they were indeed conscious of having that knowledge according to their own statements. Yet Experiment 2 showed that people could exert such control over the use of judgment knowledge when claiming they had no structural knowledge: i.e. conscious judgment knowledge could be based on unconscious structural knowledge. Further implicit learning research should be clear over whether judgment or structural knowledge is claimed to be unconscious as the two dissociate in sequence learning.     

Two pathways to stimulus encoding in category learning?

Category learning theorists tacitly assume that stimuli are encoded by a single pathway. Motivated by theories of object recognition, we evaluated a dual-pathway account of stimulus encoding. The part-based pathway establishes mappings between sensory input and symbols that encode discrete stimulus features, whereas the image-based pathway applies holistic templates to sensory input. Our experiments used rule-plus-exception structures, in which one exception item in each category violates a salient regularity and must be distinguished from other items. In Experiment 1, we found discrete representations to be crucial for recognition of exceptions following brief training. Experiments 2 and 3 involved multisession training regimens designed to encourage either part- or image-based encoding. We found that both pathways are able to support exception encoding, but have unique characteristics. We speculate that one advantage of the part-based pathway is the ability to generalize across domains, whereas the image-based pathway provides faster and more effortless recognition.     

Are primary-school-aged children experts in spatial associate learning?

In two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 180, Experiment 2: N = 150), we investigated the anecdotal observation that school age children are assumed to be experts in spatial associate learning. In the first experiment, second graders, sixth graders, and adults learned the associations between 32 pictures and either a position or a word. 16 pictures had each to be associated with one position in a 4-by-4 grid of squares (spatial condition); the other 16 pictures had each to be associated to one of 16 monosyllabic words (verbal condition). After a 3 min distractor interval the associated position or word had to be retrieved with the pictures as cues. In Experiment 2, the results were replicated in principle with modifications in the experimental details. Performance improvement as a function of age turned out to be substantially larger in the verbal condition compared to the spatial one. The results are traced back to the idea that spatial associate learning is a cognitive function maturating early during life span.     

What is happening in psychology of learning courses?

Current practices in the undergraduate Psychology of Learning course were assessed through a survey in which a questionnaire probing the teaching of the course was sent to 238 4-year colleges and universities in the United States. Fifty-four percent of the questionnaires were returned. Learning courses were taught at all but 10 of the schools that responded. The course typically is one of several that can be selected to fulfill requirements for the major in psychology. The course orientation and content varied widely from cognitive to eclectic to behavioral, and laboratory requirements existed in less than half of the courses. The effects of these practices on behavior analysis are considered and several suggestions are made for teaching behavior analysis in the Learning course and elsewhere to undergraduates.     

Which processes are involved in cognitive procedural learning?

Procedural memory is characterised by a relative resistance to pathology, making its assessment of the utmost importance. However, few studies have looked at the cognitive processes involved in cognitive procedural learning. In an initial experiment, we studied the role of different cognitive functions in massed cognitive procedural learning. Our results confirmed the existence of three separate learning phases and, for the first time, demonstrated the involvement of episodic memory and executive functions in the first learning phase. In a second experiment, we studied the effect of distributed learning conditions on the dynamics of procedural learning. This second study confirmed our results but showed that these conditions slow down the process of cognitive procedural learning. Our overall findings call into question the status of functionally autonomous memory system that is currently allotted to procedural memory, and suggest that the role of nonprocedural cognitive components should be taken into account in patient rehabilitation.     

Do dogs (Canis familiaris) seek help in an emergency?

The question of whether dogs recognize an emergency and understand the need to seek help from a bystander was tested in two experiments. In the first experiment, dogs' owners feigned a heart attack in an open field, and in the second experiment, dogs' owners experienced an accident in which a bookcase fell on them and pinned them to the floor. In these experiments, one or two bystanders were available to which dogs could go for help. The dogs' behavior was taped for 6 min after the owner had fallen and was later scored for the frequency and time the dogs spent performing different behaviors. In no case did a dog solicit help from a bystander. It is concluded that dogs did not understand the nature of the emergency or the need to obtain help.     

Do dogs resemble their owners?

Abstract— We examined whether the frequent casual reports of people resembling their pets are accurate by having observers attempt to match dogs with their owners. We further explored whether any ability of observers to make such matches is due to people selecting dogs who resemble them, in which case the resemblance should be greater for predictable purebreds than for nonpurebreds, or is due to convergence, in which case the resemblance should grow with duration of ownership. Forty-five dogs and their owners were photographed separately, and judges were shown one owner, that owner's dog, and one other dog, with the task of picking out the true match. The results were consistent with a selection account: Observers were able to match only purebred dogs with their owners, and there was no relation between the ability to pair a person with his or her pet and the time they had cohabited. The ability to match people and pets did not seem to rely on any simple trait matching (e.g., size or hairiness). The results suggest that when people pick a pet, they seek one that, at some level, resembles them, and when they get a purebred, they get what they want.     

Impulsive for life? The nature of long-term impulsivity in domestic dogs

Individual differences in impulsivity occur at a cognitive and/or behavioural level and are associated with differing life outcomes. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to support the long-term stability of these characteristics in non-human animals. This study reports on the stability of convergent measures of impulsivity in domestic dogs assessed more than 6 years apart. Measures were (1) owner assessment by means of a questionnaire, the validated ‘Dog Impulsivity Assessment Scale’ (DIAS) and (2) dogs’ performance in a delayed reward choice test. Dogs had 15-min free access to two food dispensers, one dispensing a piece of food immediately, the other dispensing three pieces after a delay, which increased by 1 s every other time the dogs sampled it. Maximum delay reached in this task reflects decision-making, or cognitive impulsivity, whereas the rate of extra presses on the delayed reward device during the delay can be considered as a measure of motor or behavioural impulsivity. DIAS scores were strongly and significantly correlated across years. The maximum delay reached in the behaviour test was also highly stable, whereas paw-pressing rate was uncorrelated between the years. These results demonstrate that cognitive but not motor impulsivity is highly consistent over time in dogs.     

Does learning a complex task have to be complex? A study in learning decomposition

Many theories of skill acquisition have had considerable success in addressing the fine details of learning in relatively simple tasks, but can they scale up to complex tasks that are more typical of human learning in the real world? Some theories argue for scalability by making the implicit assumption that complex tasks consist of many smaller parts, which are learned according to basic learning principles. Surprisingly, there has been rather sparse empirical testing of this crucial assumption. In this article, we examine this assumption directly by decomposing the learning in the Kanfer-Ackerman Air-Traffic Controller Task (Ackerman, 1988) from the learning at the global level all the way down to the learning at the keystroke level. First, we reanalyze the data from Ackerman (1988) and show that the learning in this complex task does indeed reflect the learning of smaller parts at the keystroke level. Second, in a follow-up eye-tracking experiment, we show that a large portion of the learning at the keystroke level reflects the learning even at a lower, i.e., attentional level.     

Rule learning by zebra finches in an artificial grammar learning task: which rule?

A hallmark of the human language faculty is the use of syntactic rules. The natural vocalizations of animals are syntactically simple, but several studies indicate that animals can detect and discriminate more complex structures in acoustic stimuli. However, how they discriminate such structures is often not clear. Using an artificial grammar learning paradigm, zebra finches were tested in a Go/No-go experiment for their ability to distinguish structurally different three-element sound sequences. In Experiment 1, zebra finches learned to discriminate ABA and BAB from ABB, AAB, BBA, and ABB sequences. Tests with probe sounds consisting of four elements suggested that the discrimination was based on attending to the presence or absence of repeated A- and B-elements. One bird generalized the discrimination to a new element type. In Experiment 2, we continued the training by adding four-element songs following a ‘first and last identical versus different’ rule that could not be solved by attending to repetitions. Only two out of five birds learned the overall discrimination. Testing with novel probes demonstrated that discrimination was not based on using the ‘first and last identical’ rule, but on attending to the presence or absence of the individual training stimuli. The two birds differed in the strategies used. Our results thus demonstrate only a limited degree of abstract rule learning but highlight the need for extensive and critical probe testing to examine the rules that animals (and humans) use to solve artificial grammar learning tasks. They also underline that rule learning strategies may differ between individuals.     

What is learned in sequential learning? An associative model of reward magnitude serial-pattern learning

A computational model of sequence learning is described that is based on pairwise associations and generalization. Simulations by the model predicted that rats should learn a long monotonic pattern of food quantities better than a nonmonotonic pattern, as predicted by rule-learning theory, and that they should learn a short nonmonotonic pattern with highly discriminable elements better than 1 with less discriminable elements, as predicted by interitem association theory. In 2 other studies, the model also simulated behavioral "rule generalization," "extrapolation," and associative transfer data motivated by both rule-learning and associative perspectives. Although these simulations do not rule out the possibility that rats can use rule induction to learn serial patterns, they show that a simple associative model can account for the classical behavioral studies implicating rule learning in reward magnitude serial-pattern learning.     

Does fun promote learning? The relationship between fun in the workplace and informal learning

Although research has demonstrated that workplace fun has important benefits, we have an incomplete understanding of the role of fun in the learning domain, especially informal learning. To address this need, the present study examined the influence of fun activities and manager support for fun on informal learning among 206 managers. Fun activities were significantly related to overall informal learning, but manager support for fun was not. Examination of the dimensions of informal learning found that manager support for fun was significantly related to learning from oneself, while fun activities were significantly related to learning from others and learning from non-interpersonal sources. Furthermore, a negative interaction between core-self evaluations and fun activities in predicting learning from oneself was found, suggesting that fun may not be beneficial for all individuals. The key practical implication is that organizations should consider fun as a viable strategy to promote informal learning beyond traditional learning supports. At the same time, organizations should consider the personality of their learners to ensure fun has its intended impact.     

When does social learning become cultural learning?

Developmental research on selective social learning, or ‘social learning strategies’, is currently a rich source of information about when children copy behaviour, and who they prefer to copy. It also has the potential to tell us when and how human social learning becomes cultural learning; i.e. mediated by psychological mechanisms that are specialized, genetically or culturally, to promote cultural inheritance. However, this review article argues that, to realize its potential, research on the development of selective social learning needs more clearly to distinguish functional from mechanistic explanation; to achieve integration with research on attention and learning in adult humans and ‘dumb’ animals; and to recognize that psychological mechanisms can be specialized, not only by genetic evolution, but also by associative learning and cultural evolution.