Metacognition in dogs: Do dogs know they could be wrong?

Abstract

In the current study, we investigated the question of whether dogs were sensitive to the information that they themselves had or had not acquired. For this purpose, we conducted three consecutive experiments in which dogs had to find a reward that was hidden behind one of two V-shaped fences with a gap at the point of the V. This setup allowed us to distinguish between selecting one of the fences by walking around it and seeking additional information by checking through the gap in the fence. We varied whether dogs had visual access to the baiting procedure or not. In addition, we manipulated the type and quality of reward as well as the time delay between baiting and choosing to analyze if the dogs’ searching behavior was affected. Our results were partly consistent with the findings of Call (Animal Cognition, 13 (5), 689–700, 2010) with great apes, on whose findings we based our experiments. We found that dogs checked more often through the corner of the V-shaped fence when they had not seen where the reward was hidden. Interestingly, dogs rewarded with toys selected the correct fence more often than dogs rewarded with food. Even though dogs’ performance was not affected by the food quality condition, dogs were significantly faster in fetching a high-quality food reward as opposed to a low-quality food reward. When testing whether forgetting and checking would increase as a function of delay, we found that although dogs slightly decreased in their success in finding the food when time delays were longer, they were not more likely to check before choosing. We show that – similar to apes – dogs seek additional information in uncertain situations, but their behavior in uncertain situations is less flexible compared to great apes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.3758/s13420-018-0367-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Are there Metacognitivists in the Fox Hole? A Preliminary Test of Information Seeking in an Arctic Fox (Vulpes lagopus)

“…Most critically, Burton never took the opportunity to look through the transparent section of the apparatus during seen or unseen trials. This finding is consistent with previous tests of metacognition in domestic dogs [23,24] that required an operant response, such as pushing a lever, but not consistent with [25], in which dogs could simply look through a gap before travelling past it to obtain the reward. Burton did not seek information when he should have been uncertain.…”

“…Prior work with domestic dogs has shown that dogs accurately select a baited container at above chance levels when they witnessed the baiting of the container, but at or below chance levels when they did not witness the baiting of the container [23,24]. Although in one study, dogs were above chance on unseen trials as well, dogs also utilized the option to look for helpful information in that study [25]. Although Burton had passed criterion during knowledge testing, his accuracy was below chance levels for both seen and unseen trials during testing, which suggests challenges with the testing situation.…”

“…However, evidence from recent decades using both the uncertainty response paradigm and the information-seeking paradigm suggests that some animals, such as dolphins [3], rats [4], rhesus macaques [5,32], chimpanzees, orangutans [6], and western scrub jays [7], may possess metacognitive abilities. Results from tests with domestic dogs have been mixed [23][24][25]. The aim of the studies reported in this paper was to extend the findings on metacognition in canids by testing a wild canid species.…”

“…Belger and Brauer [25] reference the importance of allowing animals a natural behavioral response in contrast to an unnatural and overtrained response in order to search for reward. In their study, with a larger sample of domestic dogs, dogs were able to simply look through a gap in fencing to seek information, and to travel around the fencing to obtain rewards.…”

Investigating information seeking in ravens (Corvus corax)

“…Two studies with dogs found that they did not seek information about the location of food when they had not seen where it was placed (Bräuer et al 2004), but rather sought information from human informants (McMahon et al 2010). A more recent study found that dogs sought information about a hidden food reward or toy more often when they had not seen which of two barriers it was placed behind and when the food was higher-value, though their search behaviour did not change with longer delays (Belger and Brauer 2018).…”