Seminar:
Dr. Julia Espinosa, University of Toronto
Date and time: March 23rd at 12:30
Place: Sala de Conferencias 1 (CIMCYC)
Title: Not just a social dog: Exploring what dogs know about the
physical environment
Abstract: Domestic dogs are primarily recognized for their social
cognition and skillful interactions with humans, but comparatively
little is known about how they make inferences about physical objects or
recognize cause-and-effect relationships in the environment. How do dogs
perceive the world around them and what cognitive processes are involved
in playing a game of fetch or finding a ball that has rolled under the
couch? While these might seem like trivial scenarios, the ability to
track objects (even toys) in one’s environment and make inferences
about how they will behave in object interactions are mental abilities
that support a wide variety of behaviours from play to hunting to
understanding social interactions. Sparse previous scholarship has
probed dogs’ physical and causal cognition and findings are
contradictory, resulting in a poor understanding of how dogs represent
the physical world. I address this knowledge gap with empirical studies
of dogs’ physical and causal cognition, examining their ability to
make inferences about object interactions and recognize underlying
causal structures in the world. My work expands our understanding of
cognitive abilities in dogs, and sheds light on the evolutionary origins
of fundamental cognitive processes by exploring how dogs view and behave
with objects in their environment.