© Mirko Lui
MOSCOW, November 23 - RIA Novosti . An unusual experiment involving dogs showed that they are able to remember what made them the owner, and can repeat these actions, even in cases when they do not expect that these memories will be useful to them, according to a paper published in the journal Current Biology.
"Our work can be considered the next step in the destruction of the artificial barriers between animals and humans. Dogs are traditionally considered us one of the most" intelligent "species, and we are still constantly amazed at how another study shows that dogs are not inferior to man in many areas of intelligence, despite the evolutionary gap between us ", - said Claudia Fugatstsa (Claudia Fugazza) from the University of Budapest (Hungary).
The overthrow of the king of nature
In recent years, scientists are discovering more and more evidence that the typical features of human intelligence and our ability to show complex emotions are common to many other animals, including dogs, primates and even crows. For example, recently, neuroscientists have found that dogs are able to understand the tone and meaning of the words that they tell the owners that they are dealing with people, not for food, but for the sake of attention and positive emotions, and that they can recognize the emotions on the face of familiar and unfamiliar to them of people.
Fugatstsa and her colleagues found that dogs have another typical human trait - the ability to remember the "unnecessary" things and recall them if necessary, observing the behavior of several pairs of dogs and their owners, who were playing a game of "Do as I do."
© Troscianko et al. / Nature
Many dog owners are well aware that their pets are able to repeat the steps for them, if you ask them to do so. This skill, as the Fugatstsa, is not yet evidence of a "human" memory in dogs as pets can learn to mechanically repeat the steps owners unknowingly, just knowing that such movements somehow make people feed or pet them.
Hungarian scientists have come up with an ingenious way to verify whether this is actually inserted in the game is another task entirely unrelated to its original purpose. First dog owners teach them to repeat their actions, and then, quite unexpectedly for animals, trying to get them to learn how to sit on a mat in the room at that moment, when the man handed the command "lie".
Man's best friend
After some time the dog get used to the "change of plans" and spontaneously started to lie down on the mat at a time when the owner entered the room, expecting him to ask them to lie. During one such "dressirovok" man suddenly said, "do as I do", then scientists have closely followed the actions of dogs.
The results of this were very unexpected - the dog, according to delay their response and a long look at his master, were surprised by an unexpected person team. Despite his surprise, almost all of the animals remembered what their master did during the last game and, for example, dealt with an umbrella, which touched their "big brother" moment, or even an hour ago.
These results suggest a few things at once. Firstly, it indicates the presence of dogs in the episodic memory, the ability to remember things and events that are not directly related to the animals themselves. Secondly, it says that dogs have some form of consciousness, the ability to separate themselves from the outside world, and to realize the intentions and actions of others.
"From the point of view of evolution, like the discovery suggests that episodic memory is not a unique feature of humans and primates, and that it is widespread among animals. Dogs, thus, can help us to uncover the secrets of the work of episodic memory, especially given the fact that they have long lived among the people and are well aware of us ", - concludes Fugatstsa.
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