Dogs' expectations about occlusion events: from expectancy violation to exploration
Christoph J Völter1, Ana Tomašić1, Laura Nipperdey1,2
1Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna and University of Vienna, 1210 Vienna, Austria.
Proceedings. Biological Sciences
|July 19, 2023
Summary
Dogs, like human infants, explore surprising events. This study shows dogs look longer at unexpected object disappearances, suggesting they learn from expectancy violations.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Ethology
- Comparative Psychology
- Animal Cognition
Background:
- Human infants explore violations of physical regularities, suggesting hypothesis testing for knowledge acquisition.
- Expectancy violation is a potential driver of learning and exploration.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if expectancy violations stimulate exploration in dogs, similar to human infants.
- To examine canine reactions to violations of physical expectancies during occlusion events.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments using controlled occlusion events to present consistent and inconsistent outcomes.
- Eye-tracking technology to measure dogs' looking times and pupil dilation.
- Behavioral analysis of object exploration following expectancy violations.
Main Results:
- Dogs consistently showed longer looking times at expectancy-inconsistent events compared to consistent ones.
- Pupil size analysis corroborated longer attention to surprising events.
- Expectancy violations led to increased exploration of the target object in dogs.
Conclusions:
- Dogs form expectations about object permanence and the influence of occluding objects.
- Expectancy violations serve as learning opportunities for dogs, mirroring findings in human infants.
- This suggests a shared mechanism for learning through surprise in distantly related species.
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