By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Psychology & Psychiatry Journal -- Investigators publish new report on Behavior Research - Behavioural Processes. According to news reporting out of Bundoora, Australia, by VerticalNews editors, research stated, “One central issue in the study of animal cognition concerns conceptual behaviour, where an organism categorises objects, events, and relationships so as to transfer previously learned rules to novel contexts. In this study, we investigated whether or not dogs demonstrate conceptual behaviour in the form of simple relational class concept learning.”
Financial supporters for this research include Drs Jiye Kim, Diana Rayment, Ron Wheeler for his expertise in equipment design and Davis Vorva for his expertise in program design.
Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from La Trobe University, “A two-choice visual discrimination task was used to assess if dogs are capable of simple relational class concept learning by generalising the same rule (i.e. circle is larger or smaller than) to various novel shapes. Eight purebred Lagotto Romagnolos were included in the study. The results demonstrated that they were capable of generalising a previously learned size discrimination rule to novel stimuli; however, there were differences in dog’s generalization capabilities across certain shapes.”
According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Considering their unique relationship with humans, and their immediacy in everyday life, a better understanding of conceptual behaviour and generalising abilities in domestic dogs may have implications for training and management methods, as well as contributing to comparative psychology and applied ethology.”
For more information on this research see: Relational concept learning in domestic dogs: Performance on a two-choice size discrimination task generalises to novel stimuli. Behavioural Processes , 2017;145():93-101. Behavioural Processes can be contacted at: Elsevier Science Bv, PO Box 211, 1000 Ae Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Behavioural Processes - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/behavioural-processes/)
Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting S.E. Byosiere, La Trobe University, Sch Psychol & Public Hlth, Bundoora, Vic 3086, Australia. Additional authors for this research include L.C. Feng, P.A. Chouinard, T.J. Howell and P.C. Bennett.
The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2017.10.009. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.
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CITATION: (2017-12-30), New Behavioural Processes Findings from La Trobe University Reported (Relational concept learning in domestic dogs: Performance on a two-choice size discrimination task generalises to novel stimuli), Psychology & Psychiatry Journal, 54, ISSN: 1944-2726, BUTTER® ID: 014901527
From the newsletter Psychology & Psychiatry Journal.
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