Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Dogs know when they don't know
In the field of comparative psychology, researchers study animals in order to learn about the evolution of various traits and what this can tell us about ourselves. At the DogStudies lab at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, project leader Juliane Bräuer studies dogs to make these comparisons. In a recent study published in the journal Learning & Behavior, Bräuer and colleague Julia Belger, now of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, explore whether dogs have metacognitive abilities -- sometimes described as the ability to "know what one knows" -- and in particular whether they are aware of what information they have learned and whether they need more information.
To test this, the researchers designed an apparatus involving two V-shaped fences. A reward, either food or a toy, would be placed by one researcher behind one of the two fences while another researcher held the dog. In some cases, the dog could see where the reward was placed, while in others the dog could not. The researchers then analyzed how frequently the dogs looked through a gap in the fence before choosing an option. The question was whether, like chimps and humans, the dog would "check" through the gap when he or she had not seen where the reward was placed. This would indicate that the dog was aware that he or she did not know where the reward was -- a metacognitive ability -- and would try to get more information before choosing a fence.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday November 22 2018, @09:53AM (1 child)
There is a section on this, in Plato's Republic, where it is suggested that dogs that can distinguish between friend and foe are in fact philosophers because of the. Let me find the original text:
Plato, Republic, [partiallyexaminedlife.com], (Why, oh why, cannot these hipster websites link to the proper Stepanus pages in the original Greek?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 22 2018, @11:34AM
That is, shall we say, not the finest part of the text. Should we really all strive to bare our teeth at every unknown situation and keep barking loudly until it goes away? Although it is an accurate condition of the average human condition, I disagree that it is something to aspire to.