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The field of canine behavioral studies has exploded in recent years. Scientists have it all unpacked, from the best way to train your dog, to how dogs learn words (spoiler: like babies).
But canine researchers are just getting started. A study published Thursday in the journal Scientific reports suggests that dogs – just like humans – experience an important manifestation of their own representation: body awareness.
A little background – Self-representation is the somewhat abstract concept centered around the image we have of ourselves in our own mind.
Self-representation involves building your own identity, which you do every time you take a selfie.
But there is a more fundamental aspect of self-representation – “body awareness” or recognition of the position of the body, especially with regard to the surrounding environment. Human babies as young as five months old have been able to recognize their own moving legs in video footage, for example.
Self-representation has long been considered a fairly distinct human trait, but scientists wonder whether or not it can manifest in animals through body consciousness.
Researchers have tried to explore the idea of body consciousness in elephants, but unknown factors – such as the elephant’s overwhelming strength – have prevented scientists from providing full answers.
Given the closeness of dogs to humans, the researchers in this study wanted to explore the concept of body awareness in man’s best friend.
“Self-awareness is a rather poorly studied area of canine cognition,” explains co-author Péter Pongrácz. Reverse. Pongrácz is an associate researcher at Eötvöz Loránd University in Hungary.
Actual images of experimental conditions included in the research. Each scene is preceded by a brief description of the experimental condition. Credit: Rita Lenkei
How they did it – The researchers placed the dogs on a small mat to test their ability to understand body awareness.
“Body awareness is a mental capacity to organize someone’s action, taking into account that their own body ‘exists’,” Pongrácz says.
“Our test put the dogs in a situation where they could only solve a task if they retreated from a mat, because if not while standing on the mat they would not be able to pick up a toy that was attached to the mat. . ”
The experimenter stood on one side of the mat and the dog owner stood on the other side. The dog owner was giving orders to the dog to bring certain items that the researcher placed either on the floor or on the carpet.
“Body consciousness is mental capacity organizing someone’s action taking into account their own body “exists”. “
Of 54 selected adult dogs, 32 passed preliminary tests that scientists implemented to exclude puppies that might affect the accuracy of results, such as dogs that experienced sensitivity to carpet movement.
For the dogs included in the study, the researchers implemented several tests, two of which were performed specifically to understand dogs’ knowledge of body awareness.
In the first, the researchers placed the dogs in the “ test condition, ” which involved fixing a tied ball to the mat. Since the ball was attached to the mat, dogs would be unable to return the object to its owner unless they got off the mat. The dogs realized this dilemma and quickly got off the mat.
In the second, they created a control experience by tying the object to the ground under the carpet. Basically, the researchers were asking if dogs understood the difference between there is an obstacle against my body is an obstacle – a key factor in body awareness.
When the ball was tied to the ground, the dogs left the mat later and less frequently, suggesting that the dogs recognized when their body was – or wasn’t an obstacle.
What’s up – The dogs in the study quickly realized that their bodies were an “obstacle” to the object’s retrieval when it was strapped to the mat.
The dogs therefore quickly got off the carpet and delivered the object to their owner, as ordered.
“Based on our results, even on their first attempt they left the mat much earlier and more likely when it was necessary to solve the task, compared to when, for example, the ball was anchored to the sol, “Pongrácz said in a statement.
The team suggests that their findings are proof of the dog’s ability to become aware of his body, writing:
“We contend that dogs’ response to the primary test can be explained based on their body awareness and understanding of the consequences of their own actions.”
According to the researchers, this study provides “the first convincing evidence of body consciousness through understanding the consequences of one’s own actions in a species where previously no capacity for higher-order self-representation was found. “
Why is this important – If dogs possess this degree of self-awareness, then they might be able to mentally process their own actions and consequences, and “separate them from other external stimuli,” the research team writes.
But it remains to be seen whether or not bodily consciousness is something that most animals possess. Very few species have been tested, says Pongrácz. He has a hypothesis, however.
“Based on our theory which views individual self-representing modules as adaptations to some ecologically relevant problem, I would venture to predict that any species that has a complex central nervous system and a relatively large body – more is moving rather quickly and in a complex environment – should have the ability to become aware of the body. ”
And after – The researchers believe their findings may help establish best practices for scientists who are conducting similar studies on “self-representation” or “body awareness” in other animals – not just dogs.
They recommend two key steps.
- Establish a concrete understanding of the animal’s evolutionary history before designing cognitive tests.
- Carry out multiple and varied experiments to test the different ways in which the animals represent themselves.
Ultimately, the researchers come up with more bottom-up and innovative methods to understand how animals perceive their relationship with the surrounding environment.
Abstract: Mental representations of one’s own body provide a useful reference when negotiating physical environmental challenges. Body consciousness is a neuro-ontogenetic precursor to higher-order self-representation, but there is a lack of an ecologically valid experimental approach for non-human species. We tested dogs (N = 32) in the “body as obstacle” task. They had to pick up and give an object to their owner, standing on a small mat. In the test condition, we tied the object to the mat, so the dogs had to leave the mat because otherwise they would not be able to lift the object. Dogs exited the mat more frequently and earlier under test conditions than under primary control conditions, where the object was tied to the ground. This is the first convincing evidence of body consciousness through understanding the consequences of one’s own actions in a species where previously no higher-order self-representing capacity was found. We advocate an environmentally sound approach and the follow-up of bottom-up methods in the study of modular self-representation.
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