From time to time, many people may think about what is actually going on in the minds of dogs, which have been our close friends for tens of thousands of years. A new study by scientists from Eötvös Lorand University shed some light on this curiosity. Scientists have revealed that dogs form ‘multi-varietal mental images’ of objects near them. So what does this mean?
According to new research published in Animal Cognition, dogs visualize many sensory aspects when they think of an object thanks to these abilities. For example, he can imagine how the object looks or smells. The new discovery could help us understand how a dog thinks about that toy when they’re looking for their favorite toy.
Dogs can create an object in their minds with different senses:
The dogs studied in the study were ‘selected’ dogs that were different from each other and could memorize the names of objects. In their first experiment, the scientists trained 3 selected dogs and 10 typical family dogs to choose in exchange for a reward. The dogs were rewarded as they managed to choose the toys that were matched with them among other toys.
The experiment of choosing a particular toy, always placed between four toys, took place in both light and non-light environments. It has been observed that dogs can find their toys in the dark longer. After this experiment, the second experiment was started. Only selected dogs participated in this experiment.
In this experiment, scientists wanted to find out what dogs thought when the toy name was called. The selected dogs were able to choose the toys named by their owners in both light and dark environments. This revealed that when dogs hear the name of a toy, they imagine the connotation of that toy in different senses. It was also seen that dogs relied more on their eyes than their noses in the light and their noses in the dark.
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