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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday September 07 2017, @08:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the sniff-your-own-bum dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

A new study carried out by the Department of Psychology at Barnard College in the U.S. used a sniff test to evaluate the ability of dogs to recognize themselves. The results have been published in the journal Behavioural Processes.

The experiment confirms the hypothesis of dog self-cognition proposed last year by Prof. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti of the Biological Institute of the Tomsk State University, Russia. Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, the lead researcher, wrote, "While domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, have been found to be skillful at social cognitive tasks and even some meta-cognitive tasks, they have not passed the test of mirror self-recognition (MSR)."

Prof. Horowitz borrowed the "Sniff test of self-recognition (STSR)" proposed by Prof. Cazzolla Gatti in 2016 to shed light on methods of testing for self-recognition, and applied it to 36 domestic dogs accompanied by their owners.

This study confirmed the previous evidence proposed with the STSR by Dr. Cazzolla Gatti showing that "dogs distinguish between the olfactory 'image' of themselves when modified: Investigating their own odour for longer when it had an additional odour accompanying it than when it did not. Such behaviour implies a recognition of the odour as being of or from 'themselves.'"

Prof. Cazzolla Gatti firstly suggested the hypothesis of self-cognition in dogs in a 2016 pioneering paper entitled after the novel by Lewis Carroll "Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there."

As the Associate Professor of the Tomsk State University anticipated: "this sniff-test could change the way some experiments on animal behaviour are validated." Soon, the study of Dr. Horowitz followed.

"I believe that dogs and other animals, being much less sensitive to visual stimuli than humans and many apes, cannot pass the mirror test because of the sensory modality chosen by the investigator to test self-awareness. This in[sic] not necessarily due to the absence of this cognitive ability in some animal species," says Cazzolla Gatti.

Source: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-stsr-dogs-self-awareness.html

More information: Alexandra Horowitz, Smelling themselves: Dogs investigate their own odours longer when modified in an "olfactory mirror" test, Behavioural Processes (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.08.001


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  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @08:03PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @08:03PM (#564739)

    Yeah bitch, Dick Nіggers.

    You know we never fuck no old pussy.

    So now right we fuck a whole lotta young pussy.

    Dick Nіggers gonna make yo bitches aware of dis big nigger dick up in yo snatch.

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  • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:02PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:02PM (#564755)

    Sniff test fail. You stink.

    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:09PM (#564758)

      Captain Cockstink reporting for doody, sir!!