Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science
Program
Psychology
Supervisor
Dr. Bill Roberts
Abstract
While the social cognitive abilities of the domestic dog (Canisfamiliaris) have received increasing amounts of attention in psychological research over the past 10 years, other aspects of cognition in domestic dogs have remained relatively unexplored. The present studies were designed to determine the spatial memory abilities of domestic dogs. This was accomplished through the use of an 8-arm radiai maze. While radiai mazes are well known in studies of spatial memory in rats and pigeons, obvious size constraints have typically limited its use to small animals. A large maze (4.6 meters in diameter) was constructed for use with dogs. When dogs chose freely among all 8 arms containing food in Experiment 1, they learned to enter all 8 arms with progressively fewer arm visits over triais. In Experiment 2, only 4 arms were used and were baited with 0, 1, 3, and 6 pieces of food. Dogs learned to go to the arms with larger amounts of food before the arms with less food. In Experiment 3, dogs were forced to visit 4 randomly chosen arms and then tested for memory of these arms using a win/shift rule for one group and a win/stay rule for another group. Although the win/shift dogs performed better than the win/stay dogs, the data suggest that dogs do not have as good spatial memory as other species tested on the radiai maze.
Recommended Citation
Macpherson, Krista, "TESTS OF SPATIAL MEMORY IN DOMESTIC DOGS (Canisfamiliciris) USING A RADIAL MAZE" (2008). Digitized Theses. 4531.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4531