Scientist: Seeing Eye Dogs Don't Know That Their Humans Are Blind


(Photo: FaceMePLS)

What do dogs think about? I look at my own dog and wonder that. I'm especially curious what he dreams about, which he does, loudly and often. What is inside a dog's mind?

This is an especially important question for people who train guide dogs. A better understanding of dog perceptions can improve training.

For example, can a guide dog who helps a blind person understand that the human cannot see? Anthropologist F. Gaunet studied the expressions of guide dogs and non-guide dogs when they want food from their humans.

He determined that both kinds of dogs try to give visual cues to humans that they're hungry. Guide dogs, however, also learned to give auditory cues, such as smacking their lips loudly, to communicate with people. Here's a selection from an abstract of a journal article that Gaunet published on the subject:

A novel audible behaviour was observed: dogs licked their mouths sonorously. Data analyses showed that the guide dogs performed this behaviour longer and more frequently than the pet dogs; seven of the nine guide dogs and two of the nine pet dogs displayed this behaviour. However, gazing at the container where the food was and gazing at the owner (with or without sonorous mouth licking), gaze alternation between the container and the owner, vocalisation and contact with the owner did not differ between groups. Together, the results suggest that there is no overall distinction between guide and pet dogs in exploratory, learning and motivational behaviours and in their understanding of their owner’s attentional state, i.e. guide dogs do not understand that their owner cannot see (them). However, results show that guide dogs are subject to incidental learning and suggest that they supplemented their way to trigger their owners’ attention with a new distal cue.


Comments (0)

I do understand some science and I've study astronomy.

The Hadron will not make black holes large enough for the earth's end. But I do believe that it will over time, around 50 destroy our little blue planet. Messing with the magnetic field for one and have we not got enough background radiation without that Japanese machine.
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I'd heard that it wasn't the threat of black holes, but some strange and theoretical result of creating strange quarks, which supposedly will tear the very molecules of the world apart.

Just what I'd heard.
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They're building the huge ITER 500 MW tokamak project one hour drive from my home.
I'll try to post something if I see a big bright mushroom the day they switch it on. In 2018.
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Come Wednesday we will either be one step closer to understanding the origins of our planet or one step closer to destroying the planet once and for all. Which will it be? Well, we will all just have to wait and see.

www.thebugz.com
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oh, you silly, silly kids, those are not such things out of a sci-fi movie, they are just harmless expensive research equipment, all they really do is a try to the discovery of information on the mechanics of physics, no big production of anything substancial (like a nuclear reactor).
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let's all kill ourselves now so that the evil scientists can't kill us with their black holes and magnetic disturbances.

as a physics student I'm apalled at how dumb people are. anything to justify slashing the science budget, right? it's all a witch hunt.

now, if a Magnetar blows up anywhere nearby, the atmosphere would boil away and we would be instantly killed by gamma radiation. but scientists aren't in the business of fabricating death stars. if you want to fear something, fear the infinite void above us.
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