Abstract
Recent studies have revealed that dogs often perform well in cognitive tasks in the social domain, but rather poorly in the physical domain. This dichotomy has led to the hypothesis that the domestication process might have enhanced the social cognitive skills of dogs (Hare et al. in Science 298:1634–1636, 2002; Miklósi et al. in Curr Biol 13:763–766, 2003) but at the same time had a detrimental effect on their physical cognition (Frank in Z Tierpsychol 5:389–399, 1980). Despite the recent interest in dog cognition and especially the effects of domestication, the latter hypothesis has hardly been tested and we lack detailed knowledge of the physical understanding of wolves in comparison with dogs. Here, we set out to examine whether adult wolves and dogs rely on means-end connections using the string-pulling task, to test the prediction that wolves would perform better than dogs in such a task of physical cognition. We found that at the group level, dogs were more prone to commit the proximity error, while the wolves showed a stronger side bias. Neither wolves nor dogs showed an instantaneous understanding of means-end connection, but made different mistakes. Thus, the performance of the wolves and dogs in this string-pulling task did not confirm that domestication has affected the physical cognition of dogs.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bratman M (1981) Intention and means-end reasoning. Philos Rev 90:252–265
Brauer J, Kaminski J, Riedel J, Call J, Tomasello M (2006) Making inferences about the location of hidden food: social dog, causal ape. J Comp Psychol 120:38–47
Chapuis N, Thinus-Blanc C, Poucet B (1983) Dissociation of mechanisms involved in dogs’ oriented displacements. Q J Exp Psychol 35:213–219
Collier-Baker E, Davis JM, Suddendorf T (2004) Do dogs (Canis familiaris) understand invisible displacement? J Comp Psychol 118:421–433
Finch G (1941) The solution of patterned string problems by chimpanzees. J Comp Psychol 32:83–90
Fiset S, Leblanc V (2007) Invisible displacement understanding in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): the role of visual cues in search behavior. Anim Cogn 10:211–224
Frank H (1980) Evolution of canine information processing under conditions of natural and artificial selection. Z Tierpsychol 5:389–399
Frank H, Frank MG (1982) Comparison of problem-solving performance of 6-week-old wolves and dogs. Anim Behav 30:95–98
Frank H, Frank MG (1985) Comparative manipulation test performance in 10-week-old wolves (Canis lupus) and Alaskan Malamutes (Canis familiaris) – a Piagetian interpretation. J Comp Psychol 99:266–274
Frank H, Frank M (1987) The University of Michigan canine information-processing project (1979e1981). In: Frank H (ed) Man and Wolf. Dr W. Junk, Dordrecht, pp 143–167
Frank H, Frank MG, Hasselbach LM, Littleton DM (1989) Motivation and insight in wolf (Canis lupus) and Alaskan Malamute (Canis familiaris)—visual-discrimination learning. Bull Psychon Society 27:455–458
Gácsi M, Miklósi Á, Vàrga O, Topál J, Csányi V (2004) Are readers of our face readers of our minds? Dogs (Canis familiaris) show situation-dependent recognition of human’s attention. Anim Cogn 7:144–153
Hare B, Brown M, Williamson C, Tomasello M (2002) The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science 298:1634–1636
Harlow HF, Settlage PH (1934) Comparative behaviour of primates. VII. Capacity of monkeys to solve patterned string tests. J Comp Psychol 18:423–435
Heinrich B (1995) An experimental investigation of insight in Common Ravens (Corvus corax). Auk 112:994–1003
Heinrich B (2000) Testing insight in ravens. In: Heyes C, Huber L (eds) The evolution of cognition. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 289–305
Heinrich B, Bugnyar T (2005) Testing problem solving in ravens: string-pulling to reach food. Ethology 111:962–976
Hemmer H (1990) Domestication. The decline of environmental appreciation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Köhler W (1927) The mentality of apes. Vintage Books, New York
Krasheninnikova A, Wanker R (2010) String-pulling in spectacled parrotlets (Forpus conspicillatus). Behaviour 147:725–739
Lea SEG, Goto K, Osthaus B, Ryan CME (2006) The logic of the stimulus. Anim Cogn 9:247–256
Marshall-Pescini S, Valsecchi P, Petak I, Accorsi PA, Previde EP (2008) Does training make you smarter? The effects of training on dogs’ performance (Canis familiaris) in a problem solving task. Behav Process 78:449–454
Miklósi Á, Soproni K (2006) A comparative analysis of animals’ understanding of the human pointing gesture. Anim Cogn 9:81–93
Miklósi Á, Kubinyi E, Topál J, Gácsi M, Virányi ZS, Csányi V (2003) A simple reason for a big difference: wolves do not look back at humans but dogs do. Curr Biol 13:763–766
Osthaus B, Slater AM, Lea SEG (2003a) Can dogs defy gravity? A comparison with the human infant and a non-human primate. Dev Sci 6:489–497
Osthaus B, Lea SEG, Slater AM (2003b) Training influences problem-solving abilities in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). In: Proceedings of the annual BSAS conference 103
Osthaus B, Lea SEG, Slater AM (2005) Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) fail to show understanding of means-end connections in a string-pulling task. Anim Cogn 8:37–47
Pepperberg IM (2004) “Insightful” string-pulling in Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) is affected by vocal competence. Anim Cogn 7:263–266
Pongrácz P, Miklósi Á, Kubinyi E, Gurobi K, Topál J, Csányi V (2001) Social learning in dogs: the effect of a human demonstrator on the performance of dogs in a detour task. Anim Behav 62:1109–1117
Pongrácz P, Miklósi Á, Kubinyi E, Topál J, Csányi V (2003) Interaction between individual experience and social learning in dogs. Anim Behav 65:595–603
Povinelli DJ (2000) Folk physics for apes. Oxford University Press, New York
Range F, Heucke SL, Gruber C, Konz A, Huber L, Virányi ZS (2009) The effect of ostensive cues on dogs’ performance in a manipulative social learning task. Appl Anim Behav Sci 120:170–178
Range F, Hentrup M, Virányi ZS (2011) Dogs are able to solve a means-end task. Anim Cogn 14:575–583
Schmidt GF, Cook RG (2006) Mind the gap: means-end discrimination by pigeons. Anim Behav 71:599–608
Schuck-Paim C, Borsari A, Ottoni EB (2009) Means to an end: neotropical parrots manage to pull strings to meet their goals. Anim Cogn 12:287–301
Scott JP, Fuller JL (1965) Genetics and the social behavior of the dog. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Szetei V, Miklósi Á, Topál J, Csányi V (2003) When dogs seem to lose their nose: an investigation on the use of visual and olfactory cues in communicative context between dog and owner. Appl Anim Behav Sci 83:141–152
Thorndike EL (1898) Animal intelligence: an experimental study of the associative processes in animals. Psychol Rev Monogr Suppl 2:1–109
Tomasello M, Call J (1997) Primate cognition. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Topál J, Miklósi Á, Csányi V (1997) Dog-human relationship affects problem solving behavior in the dog. Anthrozoos 10:214–224
Udell MAR, Dorey NR, Wynne CDL (2010) What did domestication do to dogs? A new account of dogs’ sensitivity to human actions. Biol Rev 85:327–345
Virányi Zs, Topál J, Gácsi M, Miklósi Á, Csányi V (2004) Dogs respond appropriately to cues of humans’ attentional focus. Behav Process 66:161–172
Virányi Zs, Topál J, Miklósi Á, Csányi V (2006) A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children. Anim Cogn 9:13–26
Watson JS, Gergely G, Csányi V, Tópal J, Gácsi M, Sarkozi Z (2001) Distinguishing logic from association in the solution of an invisible displacement task by children (Homo sapiens) and dogs (Canis familiaris): Using negation of disjunction. J Comp Psychol 115:219–226
Werdenich D, Huber L (2006) A case of quick problem solving in birds: string pulling in keas, Nestor notabilis. Anim Behav 71:855–863
Wynne CDL, Udell MAR, Lord KA (2008) Ontogeny’s impact on human–dog communication. Anim Behav 76:e1–e4
Acknowledgments
We thank Wolf Park and the Mountain Wolf Farm for being able to test their animals, Pat Goodman on helpful comments on the manuscript, Corsin Müller for helping with the statistical analyses, Katharina Kramer for reliability coding, Kurt Kotrschal for helping to establish the Wolf Science Center, 5 reviewers and Stephen Lea for their helpful comments to improve the manuscript, and many students and volunteers for their devotion and assistance with raising the animals of the Wolf Science Center. The project was financially supported by the Hochschuljubiläumsstiftung der Stadt Wien (H-2076/2008) and Austrian Science Fund (FWF) project P21244-B17. We further thank many private sponsors and Royal Canin for financial support and the Gamepark Ernstbrunn for hosting the Wolf Science Center.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Range, F., Möslinger, H. & Virányi, Z. Domestication has not affected the understanding of means-end connections in dogs. Anim Cogn 15, 597–607 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0488-8
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0488-8