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posted by Fnord666 on Monday November 28 2016, @06:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do dept.

Episodic memory is the ability to consciously recall personal experiences and events, and in particular, to consciously place oneself within that memory. As such, it is typically associated with self-awareness. Self-awareness is something that has typically been seen as a uniquely human trait. It has been observed that some species, such as jays, hummingbirds, rats and apes, exhibit "episodic-like" memory, but this has been observed for behavior that is required for them to survive in their environment and not necessarily a general capability.

A group of researchers from Hungary devised a set of experiments to test the episodic memory capacity of dogs. They worked with 17 dog owners and had them train their dogs in the method known as do-as-I-do, where dogs are trained to imitate the action of their owner. For instance, if the owner jumps up in the air, when the dog is commanded "do it", the dog jumps in the air. Next, the owners would perform actions, but wouldn't require the dogs to imitate them and would have them lie down. However, after a certain amount of time, they would unexpectedly command their dogs to "do it" and the dog would have to remember what action it was that their owner performed. In these trials, the dogs correctly performed the action 33 out of 35 trials. They presented their work in the journal Current Biology .

"It shows that our dogs remember events much like we do, and [it] blows out of the water the old way that most scientists would characterize animal memory," says Brian Hare, a dog cognition expert at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the study. "Our dogs' memories aren't based simply on repetition and reward."


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @08:42AM (#433949)

    So you're saying you can't give yourself a blowjob? You're so lame.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @04:40PM (#434088)

    The problem with sucking your own dick is that the pleasure of having your dick sucked is juxtaposed with the displeasure of having a cock in your mouth.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @07:37PM (#434166)

      Unless you're into that sort of thing...