4 ms·

Dogs are not self aware, otherwise I would love a source. That just sounds like some feelgood popsci.

jaytaylor 8y ago
Web sources seem to agree with justtopost: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201705/are-dogs-self-aware https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/2017... Dogs fail the mirror test. They are certainly quite intelligent, but technically don't meet the criteria for self-awareness. And the scent thing where they spend less time on their own scent, or don't mark over their own scent, is dissmissed as a reflexive action.
groestl 8y ago
I'm referring to the "Sniff test of self-recognition" (STSR), which has been proposed by Gatti in [Gat16] and run on a very small sample of dogs. Horowitz has proposed another testing method, derived from STSR, in [Hor17]. [Hor17] has been criticized by Gallup et al. in [Gal18] for lacking evidence according to their framework of self-awareness (dogs need to sniff on themselves after exposure to their own scent). But the authors agree that the "olfactory mirror" test is a valid extension of the "mirror test", a self-awareness test based on visual clues. Gatti has shared some of the criticism recently [Gat18], but attributes the lack of evidence to formal problems, namely [Hor17] failing to cite important aspects of his original work in [Gat16]. And indeed, while [Gal18] cites [Hor17], and [Hor17] cites [Gat16], [Gal18] makes no mention of results by Gatti in [Gat16], which would support their framework: "[...] when released together inside the enclosure and left free to move and interact with each other and with the five samples, the four dogs repetitively sniffed the excretory organs of the others and the containers, sometimes stopping to sniff themselves." I'm no expert, so I don't want to make any strong assertions here. But it seems that only recently, alternative self-awareness testing procedures (to the "mirror test") have become acceptable by researchers. Now new tests will be designed, and there is a body of evidence to be gathered for each of those tests. I personally believe that, given that the defense of human exclusivity for cognitive features has been a running fight, self-awareness will eventually suffer a similar fate. [Gat16] Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto. Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there. Ethology Ecology & Evolution, 2016 [Hor17] Alexandra Horowitz. Smelling themselves: Dogs investigate their own odours longer when modified in an "olfactory mirror" test. Behavioural Processes, 2017 [Gal18] Gordon G. Gallup Jr. & James R. Anderson. The "olfactory mirror" and other recent attempts to demonstrate self-recognition in non-primate species. Behavioural Processes, 2018 [Gat18] https://robertocazzollagatti.com/2018/06/07/self-awareness-in-dogs-needs-no-mirroring/ https://robertocazzollagatti.com/2018/06/07/self-awareness-i... - 2018

Web sources seem to agree with justtopost: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201705/are-dogs-self-aware https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/2017... Dogs fail the mirror test. They are certainly quite intelligent, but technically don't meet the criteria for self-awareness. And the scent thing where they spend less time on their own scent, or don't mark over their own scent, is dissmissed as a reflexive action.

groestl 8y ago

I'm referring to the "Sniff test of self-recognition" (STSR), which has been proposed by Gatti in [Gat16] and run on a very small sample of dogs. Horowitz has proposed another testing method, derived from STSR, in [Hor17]. [Hor17] has been criticized by Gallup et al. in [Gal18] for lacking evidence according to their framework of self-awareness (dogs need to sniff on themselves after exposure to their own scent). But the authors agree that the "olfactory mirror" test is a valid extension of the "mirror test", a self-awareness test based on visual clues. Gatti has shared some of the criticism recently [Gat18], but attributes the lack of evidence to formal problems, namely [Hor17] failing to cite important aspects of his original work in [Gat16]. And indeed, while [Gal18] cites [Hor17], and [Hor17] cites [Gat16], [Gal18] makes no mention of results by Gatti in [Gat16], which would support their framework: "[...] when released together inside the enclosure and left free to move and interact with each other and with the five samples, the four dogs repetitively sniffed the excretory organs of the others and the containers, sometimes stopping to sniff themselves." I'm no expert, so I don't want to make any strong assertions here. But it seems that only recently, alternative self-awareness testing procedures (to the "mirror test") have become acceptable by researchers. Now new tests will be designed, and there is a body of evidence to be gathered for each of those tests. I personally believe that, given that the defense of human exclusivity for cognitive features has been a running fight, self-awareness will eventually suffer a similar fate. [Gat16] Cazzolla Gatti, Roberto. Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there. Ethology Ecology & Evolution, 2016 [Hor17] Alexandra Horowitz. Smelling themselves: Dogs investigate their own odours longer when modified in an "olfactory mirror" test. Behavioural Processes, 2017 [Gal18] Gordon G. Gallup Jr. & James R. Anderson. The "olfactory mirror" and other recent attempts to demonstrate self-recognition in non-primate species. Behavioural Processes, 2018 [Gat18] https://robertocazzollagatti.com/2018/06/07/self-awareness-in-dogs-needs-no-mirroring/ https://robertocazzollagatti.com/2018/06/07/self-awareness-i... - 2018