Biology session

Individual recognition (IR) is the ability to discriminate between other individuals relying on specific cues, and display specific behaviour toward each individual based on their identity. Dogs (Canis familiaris) are able to differentiate between humans and recognise their owner specifically. Previous studies also show that dogs tend to engage in social interaction with unfamiliar self-propelled objects (UMOs); however, we do not know whether they remember these agents for a long term, or the social interaction has had an impact only in the specific behavioural test. In the present experiment, we investigated whether dogs are able to generalize their ability of IR to UMOs after a short interaction, and whether they remember the interaction with the UMO over a longer period of time. First, the UMO helped dogs to obtain an unreachable ball and then engaged in playful interactions with them. Then we tested whether dogs recognize the familiar UMO by observing dogs’ behaviour toward the UMO in a four-way choice test, after one day, one week, or one month. Dogs were also tested in the same problem-solving task and playing interaction as before, to investigate whether they can remember the interactive and helpful behaviour of the UMO in general (regardless of recognizing the familiar UMO specifically). Preliminary results show that dogs do not display specific behaviour toward the familiar UMO, but they solicit help from and interact with it.

Thus it seems that although dogs do not recognize the previously seen UMO after a short encounter, dog remembers the interaction itself even a month later. Thus although we cannot argue IR of UMOs, these agents could be used more widely in the investigation of dog behaviour and cognition, including long-term memory.