New study confirms dogs have self-awareness and are cognitively very similar to young children, even learning in similar ways
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves himNew study confirms dogs have self-awareness and are cognitively very similar to young children, even learning in similar ways
A Hungarian study went into depth the cognitive abilities of the dog in relation to the body awareness, the awareness of one's own figure as well as one's being. A very interesting question of the canine sphere that has been analyzed in an introspective key by a team of university researchers.
In pets, and specifically in dogs, self-awareness had never before been inspected that much, leaving many questions unresolved. In fact, while in humans the ability to be aware of the actions performed and of the person seems to develop already around five months of life, in animals an aura of mystery holds in science in this regard.
Is the dog aware that his own body exists? Does he know what he does when he makes certain movements or actions such as smashing his slippers or yawning? These are the questions posed by the researchers of the Department of Ethology of the Loránd University in Budapest.
The experts studied the behavior of some dogs, including their owners in the social experiment and asking them to give their dog a specific command when they were placed on a mat with attached objects.
Commands included retrieving a ball attached to the mat and then another game placed below the mat instead.
In both tests, the dogs were shown to understand what the obstacles were, leaving the mat more or less frequently, as if wanting to communicate to their observers that they knew what might or might not interfere with the given task.
The researchers were surprised by the recorded results proving our pets' complex mental abilities and leading them to question whether these cognitive abilities are also shared by other larger species such as horses or elephants.
Surely we now know that it is no longer so causal if our dog makes a mess and then comes to us with a sweet, sorry or embarrassed look.
Fonte: Scientific Report
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