Generalize or personalize--do dogs transfer an acquired rule to novel situations and persons?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hertel A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4100895 | biostudies-literature | 2014
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Generalize or personalize--do dogs transfer an acquired rule to novel situations and persons?
Hertel Anne A Kaminski Juliane J Tomasello Michael M
PloS one 20140716 7
Recent studies have raised the question of whether dogs, like human infants, comprehend an established rule as generalizable, normative knowledge or rather as episodic information, existing only in the immediate situation. In the current study we tested whether dogs disobeyed a prohibition to take a treat (i) in the presence of the communicator of the ban, (ii) after a temporary absence of the communicator, and (iii) in the presence of a novel person. Dogs disobeyed the rule significantly more o ...[more]
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