Observational Learning in Dogs
Where can we go from here?
- Liberty horsemanship
- Happier pets and owners
- Could allow for faster training of police dogs and service dogs
References
Themes
- Adler, L. L., & Adler, H. E. (1977). Ontogeny of observational learning in the dog (Canis familiaris). Developmental Psychobiology, 10(3), 267-271. doi:10.1002/dev.420100310
- Kubinyi, E., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., & Csányi, V. (2003). Dogs (Canis familiaris) learn their owners via observation in a manipulation task. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 117(2), 156-165. doi:10.1037/0735-7036.117.2.156
- Kupán, K., Miklósi, Á., Gergely, G., & Topál, J. (2011). Why do dogs (Canis familiaris) select the empty container in an observational learning task?. Animal Cognition,14(2), 259-268. doi:10.1007/s10071-010-0359-0
- Overall, K. L. (2009). Seeking a more scientific understanding of how dogs learn. Journal Of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications And Research, 4(1), 1-2. doi:10.1016/j.jveb .2008.11.001
- Pongrácz, P., Miklósi, Á., Kubinyi, E., Topál, J., & Csányi, V. (2003). Interaction between individual experience and social learning in dogs. Animal Behaviour, 65(3), 595-603. doi:10.1006/anbe.2003.2079
- Slabbert, J. M., & Rasa, O. E. (1997). Observational learning of an acquired maternal behaviour pattern by working dog pups: An alternative training method?.Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 53(4), 309-316. doi:10.1016/S0168-1591(96)01163-X
- Tennie, C., Glabsch, E., Tempelmann, S., Bräuer, J., Kaminski, J., & Call, J. (2009). Dogs, Canis familiaris, fail to copy intransitive actions in third-party contextual imitation tasks. Animal Behaviour, 77(6), 1491-1499. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.03.008
- Yamamoto, M., Kikusui, T., & Ohta, M. (2009). Influence of delayed timing of owners' actions on the behaviors of their dogs, Canis familiaris. Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research, 4(1), 11-18. doi:10.1016/j.jveb.2008.08.006
Dogs are very sensitive animals (Tennie et al.)
Continued performance (Pongracz et al)
What is observational learning?
When a person or an animal witnesses an action and then repeats it
Dogs can pick up special abilities (Kubinyl et al.)
Why use it?
It can have faster results if done correctly
An example
Background
Observational learning is also known as social learning, vicarious learning, or modeling
You can have observational learning without imitation but you cannot have imitation without observational learning
Why can dogs observationally learn from humans?