Dogs' ability to follow temporarily invisible moving objects: the ability to track and expect is shaped by experience.

ABSTRACT: Visually tracking a moving object, even if it becomes temporarily invisible, is an important skill for animals living in complex environments. However, this ability has not been widely explored in dogs. To address this gap of knowledge and understand how experience contributes to such ability, we conducted two experiments using a violation of expectation paradigm. Dogs were shown an animation of a ball moving horizontally across a screen, passing behind an occluder, and reappearing with a timing that was faster, slower or congruent with its initial speed. In the first experiment, dogs (N = 15) were exposed to the incongruent conditions without prior experience; while in the second experiment, dogs (N = 37) were preliminarily exposed to the congruent stimulus. Dogs of the first experiment d

SUBMITTER: Looke M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9950174 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature