91ÊÓƵ

At the 91ÊÓƵ Dog Lab, we study how dogs think, learn and interact with their world. Our research is non-invasive, play-based, and designed to be fun for our canine participants.

Cognition and Learning

How do dogs learn from humans? We investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying how dogs acquire new skills and information. By showing dogs demonstrations or puzzle boxes we are able to compare their learning strategies to those of human children and other animals.

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Unlike human children who often copy every action a demonstrator makes—even unnecessary ones—we’ve found that dogs are highly practical. They quickly refine their process to only use the necessary steps to get their reward!

Communication

Dogs have evolved alongside humans for thousands of years, developing unique social skills to communicate with us. We explore how domestication has shaped their cognitive abilities, allowing them to read human social cues better than almost any other species.

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How well do dogs understand when humans intend to communicate? In this game, we test dogs’ ability to follow human social cues they have seen before and some that are brand new to find hidden treats. This helps us map the boundaries of their communicative abilities.

Social cognition and the human animal bond

What do dogs think about the minds of others? Do they have expectations about how humans act, and are they interested in working together with us? We investigate our interspecies bond and look for behavioral signatures of theory of mind and cooperative intent.

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We investigate what happens when human interaction suddenly stops. Do they expect us to behave a certain way and do they want to re-engage us in the task we were doing together? This experiment compares dogs’ responses to experiments done with human children.

Want to be a part of our research?

We are always looking for canine volunteers! Our studies are short, fun, and you get to stay with your dog the entire time.

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