Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

The More the Merrier:Dogs can Assess Quantities in Food-Choice Tasks


Affiliations
1 Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India
 

Animals in their natural environment often face situa-tions where it may be advantageous for them to be able to make decisions based on numerical or quantity discrimination. Canids like pet dogs, wolves and coy-otes have been known to have a preliminary sense of number. We tested 303 unique free-ranging dogs for seven food-choice tasks, skewed in terms of stimulus: olfactory, visual and reward obtained. The dogs pri-marily used olfactory cues in the decision-making process, rather than visual cues, to discriminate between different quantities in a context-dependent manner.

Keywords

Food-Choice Task, Free-Ranging Dogs, Numerical Cognition, Quantity Discrimination, Stimulus.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Gelman, R. and Cordes, S., Counting in animals and humans. In Language, Brain, and Cognitive Development: Essays in Honor of Jacques Mehler, The MIT Press, 2001, pp. 279–301.

  • Merritt, D. J., DeWind, N. K. and Brannon, E. M., Comparative cognition of number representation. Oxf. Handb. Comp. Cogn., 2012; doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195392661.013.0024.

  • Gordon, P., Numerical cognition without words: evidence from Amazonia. Science, 2004, 306, 496–499.

  • Beran, M. J. and Rumbaugh, D. M., Enumeration by chimpanzees on a computerized task. Anim. Cogn., 2001, 4, 81–89.

  • Beran, M. J. and Beran, M. M., Chimpanzees remember the results of one-by-one addition of food items to sets over extended time periods. Psychol. Sci., 2004, 15, 94–99.

  • Evans, T. A., Beran, M. J., Harris, E. H. and Rice, D. F., Quantity judgments of sequentially presented food items by capuchin mon-keys (Cebus apella). Anim. Cogn., 2009, 12, 97–105.

  • Agrillo, C., Piffer, L. and Bisazza, A., Number versus continuous quantity in numerosity judgments by fish. Cognition, 2011, 119, 281–287.

  • Lucon-Xiccato, T., Gatto, E. and Bisazza, A., Quantity discrimina-tion by treefrogs. Anim. Behav., 2018, 139, 61–69.

  • Vonk, J. and Beran, M. J., Bears ‘count’ too: quantity estimation and comparison in black bears, Ursus americanus. Anim. Behav., 2012, 84, 231–238.

  • Perdue, B. M., Talbot, C. F., Stone, A. M. and Beran, M. J., Put-ting the elephant back in the herd: elephant relative quantity judgments match those of other species. Anim. Cogn., 2012, 15, 955–961.

  • Dacke, M. and Srinivasan, M. V., Evidence for counting in insects. Anim. Cogn., 2008, 11, 683–689.

  • Pepperberg, I. M., Cognitive and communicative abilities of Grey parrots. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 2006, 100, 77–86.

  • Ward, C. and Smuts, B. B., Quantity-based judgments in the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris). Anim. Cogn., 2006, 10, 71–80.

  • West, R. E. and Young, R. J., Do domestic dogs show any evi-dence of being able to count? Anim. Cogn., 2002, 5, 183–186.

  • Utrata, E., Virányi, Z. and Range, F., Quantity discrimination in wolves (Canis lupus). Front. Psychol., 2012, 3, 505.

  • Baker, J. M., Shivik, J. and Jordan, K. E., Tracking of food quanti-ty by coyotes (Canis latrans). Behav. Process., 2011, 88, 72–75.

  • Range, F., Jenikejew, J., Schröder, I. and Virányi, Z., Difference in quantity discrimination in dogs and wolves. Front. Psychol., 2014, 5, 1299.

  • Lampe, M., Bräuer, J., Kaminski, J. and Virányi, Z., The effects of domestication and ontogeny on cognition in dogs and wolves. Sci. Rep., 2017, 7, 11690.

  • Hare, B., Brown, M., Williamson, C. and Tomasello, M., The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science, 2002, 298, 1634–1636.

  • Weber, M. and Schneider, L., Marginal utility theory and the fun-damental law of psychophysics. Soc. Sci. Q., 1975, 56, 21–36.

  • Macpherson, K. and Roberts, W. A., Can dogs count? Learn. Motiv., 2013, 44, 241–251.

  • Bhadra, A. et al., The meat of the matter: a rule of thumb for scavenging dogs? Ethol. Ecol. Evol., 2016, 28, 427–440.

  • Team R. Core. R: A language and environment for statistical com-puting, 2003, p. 201.

  • Davis, H. and Pérusse, R., Numerical competence in animals: definitional issues, current evidence, and a new research agenda. Behav. Brain Sci., 1988, 11, 561.

  • Paul, M., Sen Majumder, S., Nandi, A. K. and Bhadra, A., Selfish mothers indeed! Resource-dependent conflict over extended parental care in free-ranging dogs. Open Sci., 2015, 2, 150580.

  • Bhadra, A. and Bhadra, A., Preference for meat is not innate in dogs. J. Ethol., 2014, 32, 15–22.

  • Darwin, C., The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, D. Appleton, 1896, vol. 1.

  • Shettleworth, S. J., Clever animals and killjoy explanations in comparative psychology. Trends Cogn. Sci., 2010, 14, 477– 481.

  • Thorndike, E. L., 1911. Edward Lee Thorndike. Anim. Intell., 1874, 1949.

  • Thomas, R. K., Investigating cognitive abilities in animals: unreal-ized potential. Cogn. Brain Res., 1996, 3, 157–166.

  • Zentall, T. R., Wasserman, E. A., Lazareva, O. F., Thompson, R. K. R. and Rattermann, M. J., Concept learning in animals. Comp. Cogn. Behav. Rev., 2008, 3, 13–45.

  • Gallistel, C. R. and Gelman, R., Non-verbal numerical cognition: from reals to integers. Trends Cogn. Sci., 2000, 4, 59–65.

  • Harrington, F. H. and Mech, L. D., Wolf howling and its role in territory maintenance. Behaviour, 1979, 68, 207–249.

  • Sillero-Zubiri, C. and Macdonald, D. W., Scent-marking and terri-torial behaviour of Ethiopian wolves Canis simensis. J. Zool., 1998, 245, 351–361.


Abstract Views: 359

PDF Views: 119




  • The More the Merrier:Dogs can Assess Quantities in Food-Choice Tasks

Abstract Views: 359  |  PDF Views: 119

Authors

Arunita Banerjee
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India
Anindita Bhadra
Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, Mohanpur 741 246, India

Abstract


Animals in their natural environment often face situa-tions where it may be advantageous for them to be able to make decisions based on numerical or quantity discrimination. Canids like pet dogs, wolves and coy-otes have been known to have a preliminary sense of number. We tested 303 unique free-ranging dogs for seven food-choice tasks, skewed in terms of stimulus: olfactory, visual and reward obtained. The dogs pri-marily used olfactory cues in the decision-making process, rather than visual cues, to discriminate between different quantities in a context-dependent manner.

Keywords


Food-Choice Task, Free-Ranging Dogs, Numerical Cognition, Quantity Discrimination, Stimulus.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv117%2Fi6%2F1095-1100