Researchers from the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, have found that dogs possess the cognitive ability to process and replicate human actions observed in two-dimensional video projections. The study, recently published in Biologia Futura, sheds light on how dogs’ observational experiences with humans in their daily lives align with their capacity to imitate actions from various camera angles.
Innovative Training Method Bridges the Gap
Using the innovative “Do as I Do” training method, the researchers trained two dogs, Tara, a male Golden Retriever, and Franc, a female Labrador Retriever, to imitate human actions. The training began with live demonstrations and then progressed to life-size video projections streamed via online conference software. This setup allowed for real-time interaction between the dogs and their remotely located owners.
“Using the Do as I Do imitation paradigm is similar to asking the dogs, ‘What did I just do?’ while showing them on the screen various human actions under different camera angles. The dogs responded by performing matching actions based on how they perceived and processed the demonstration,” explained Fumi Higaki, coauthor and owner of Tara.
Familiarity with Camera Angles Plays a Crucial Role
The experiment tested the dogs’ ability to imitate actions observed from three different camera angles: frontal, side, and above. The results showed that dogs could replicate actions observed from frontal and side angles, which are observational perspectives commonly encountered in their daily lives with humans. However, they faced challenges when trying to imitate actions from an overhead perspective, which is a less familiar viewpoint.
“This study, even if only exploratory, not only advances our understanding of how dogs perceive and interpret human actions, but more importantly, this innovative method could broaden research into several other potential cognitive abilities, and could also be extended to other species,” said lead researcher, Claudia Fugazza.
Keyword phrase: dogs imitate human actions from video projections
