Thread by @DrBenKatz

I JUST CAME ACROSS THE MOST ADORABLE PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH I HAVE EVER SEEN AND HAD TO MAKE A THREAD ABOUT IT HAVE AN AMAZING WEEKEND!!!!

Every intro to cognitive psychology course has at least one chapter where we ask how people know that dogs are dogs - after all, they look so different from each other.

This research one-ups our question and asks: HOW DO DOGS KNOW THAT OTHER DOGS ARE DOGS??

First, let's meet our subjects in Figure 1 of this article. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ALL ARE! THEY ARE ALL SUCH GOOD BOYS AND GIRLS AND CUSCO IS ABSOLUTELY SERVING!!

Next, let's see how they were trained to identify other dogs. They would sit and see pictures of one dog and one not-dog. If they poked the dog picture, they got a treat. LOOK AT BAHIA CHOOSING CORRECTLY BECAUSE BAHIA IS VERY GOOD AND VERY SMART!!!

AND BY THE WAY, IT SEEMS THAT THE PICTURES OF THE DOGS AND NON-DOGS WERE SPECIALLY SELECTED FOR HIGH LEVELS OF CUTENESS AND HUGGABILITY!!!

(except for the cat.)

It turns out dogs are pretty good at telling pictures of dogs from pictures of not-dogs.
ALSO I FULLY REGRET EVERY TIME I LABELED MY HUMAN PARTICIPANTS DUMB NAMES LIKE "105" AND "106" WHEN I COULD HAVE CALLED THEM "BAG" AND "VODKA"!!!

I should note that Bounty is a very good girl in general, but she is not very good at identifying other dogs by picture. Sorry, Bounty.

The discussion is also adorable. Maybe some dogs did worse because they got more frustrated when they failed 😭😭😭😭😭

To summarize:
1. All dogs are good dogs.
2. Some dogs are also useful for identifying if another dog is a dog.
3. Every single one of us has chosen the wrong career path except for the authors of this study.

Happy weekend.

I'm loving all the love on this thread!

Thinking about the time I ran an experiment and a participant brought a seeing eye dog in training. I couldn't use the data because the dog's tail was wagging against the wall all 45 minutes.

So (human) psychology is fun too!