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Dog Behavior: Test Results Help Explain Just How Dogs Think
People generally find it difficult to think like a dog. Most dog owners assume their pets think like people, ascribing to them mental abilities far beyond what they actually possess.
Because dogs do not use words to communicate, we can assume that they do not use words to think about their daily activities or to remember experiences, people, objects or their environment. For example, a chewing dog who was severely whipped by its owner at homecoming yesterday does not think today, "My owner is due home in a few minutes. I wonder if I will get a whipping today!" More likely, the dog may recall "images" of yesterday's experience. Despite this difference, the anatomy and other functional aspects of human and canine brains are remarkably similar.
Dogs have been used in comparative behavioral studies to better understand human neurophysiologic processes, mostly in Russia and Poland. Western scientists have tended to favor primates, cats and rodents. Studies published by Pavlov, and later by Konorski, have provided valuable insight into many functions of the human brain. Because dogs were their research models, a great deal was also revealed about how dogs perceive the world, learn from their experiences and "think." The following observations are of great interest.
In many of his dogs, Konorski noted events he described as "hallucinations." These involved the visual, tactile, auditory and gustatory/olfaction senses.
Visual: A dog was conditioned to salivate upon exposure to a flickering light while food was simultaneously offered. Thereafter, during pauses between presentations of the light, the dog would spontaneously react with salivation and turn its head, as if actually seeing the food.
Tactile: A dog was trained to lift a foreleg and place it on a feeder tray in response to a tactile stimulus on that leg. During pauses, the dog would often spontaneously place its foreleg on the box, though no stimulus had been given.
Auditory: A dog trained to lift its foreleg at the sound of a buzzer would spontaneously turn toward the buzzer's location during pauses, and lift its leg, as if the buzzer had actually sounded.
Gustatory/Olfactory: Dogs trained to respond to various types of stimuli that signaled introduction of a mild acid into their mouth reacted to the conditioned stimulus with the same vigorous mouthing and salivation elicited by the acid itself. In this case, no reactions were noted between trials.
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