TY - JOUR
T1 - Generalize or personalize
T2 - do dogs transfer an acquired rule to novel situations and persons?
AU - Hertel, Anne
AU - Kaminski, Juliane
AU - Tomasello, Michael
PY - 2014/7/16
Y1 - 2014/7/16
N2 - Recent studies have raised the question of whether dogs, like human infants, comprehend an established rule as generalizable, normative knowledge or rather as episodic information, existing only in the immediate situation. In the current study we tested whether dogs disobeyed a prohibition to take a treat (i) in the presence of the communicator of the ban, (ii) after a temporary absence of the communicator, and (iii) in the presence of a novel person. Dogs disobeyed the rule significantly more often when the communicator left the room for a moment or when they were faced with a new person, than when she stayed present in the room. These results indicate that dogs “forget” a rule as soon as the immediate human context becomes disrupted.
AB - Recent studies have raised the question of whether dogs, like human infants, comprehend an established rule as generalizable, normative knowledge or rather as episodic information, existing only in the immediate situation. In the current study we tested whether dogs disobeyed a prohibition to take a treat (i) in the presence of the communicator of the ban, (ii) after a temporary absence of the communicator, and (iii) in the presence of a novel person. Dogs disobeyed the rule significantly more often when the communicator left the room for a moment or when they were faced with a new person, than when she stayed present in the room. These results indicate that dogs “forget” a rule as soon as the immediate human context becomes disrupted.
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0102666
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0102666
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 9
SP - e102666
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 7
M1 - e102666
ER -