discrimination of quantities. However, the performance ofdogs on the social domain does not allow an extension ofthe ‘‘social dog–causal ape’’ hypothesis put forward byBrauer et al. Domestic dogs performed significantly betterwhen communicative and gestural cues are given but do notoutperform chimpanzees on social cognition tasks in gen-eral. Furthermore, with the help of this test battery, we cannot only compare dog cognition with cognitive abilities ofother species but also test for individual performance anddifferences between the 2 species investigated. We also willbe able to discuss the possible influence of multiple factorssuch as sex, age, training, and dog–owner relationship onthe performance of domestic dogs in cognitive tasks.

Key words: cognition; species differences; individualdifferences

References:

Brauer, J., Kaminski, J., Riedel, J., Call, J., Tomasello, M., 2006. Making

inferences about the location of hidden food: social dog, causal ape. J.

Comp. Psychol 120, 38–47.

Herrmann, E., Call, J., Hernandez-Lloreda, M., Hare, B., Tomasello, M.,

2007. Humans have evolved specialized skills of social cognition: the

cultural intelligence hypothesis. Science 317, 1360–1366.11

THE ROLE OF ASSOCIATION AND OF HUMANINFORMATIVE GESTURES IN THE CONTROL OF SPATIALSEARCH IN DOMESTIC DOGS (CANIS FAMILIARIS)Rebecca Ashton*, Carlo De LilloPsychology, University of Leicester, United Kingdom*Corresponding author: rla6@le.ac.uk

It has been reported that dogs are competent users of humangestures conveying information about the location ofobjects, such as the act of hiding bait in a Piagetian objectpermanence task. Nevertheless, dogs easily relapse into theA-not-B error that is evidence for more basic associativeprocesses in similar tasks. We report the results of 3experiments aimed at contrasting the effect of associativelearning with the ability to use human informative gesturesconcerning the location of objects in a spatial search task.The methodology is based on a reversal learning paradigm,originally developed to assess whether different primatespecies learn to discriminate objects on the basis of thegradual development of associations or by using higher levelmediational strategies that would support 1-trial learning (DeLillo and Visalberghi, 1994; Rumbaugh, 1971). In a spatialversion of this paradigm, we initially trained dogs to identifywhich of 2 containers placed at different locations was food-baited. We then measured reversal performance in conditionswhere either: (A) the reversal of the reward contingencies ap-plied to both locations used during training, or (B) one of thelocations involved in the original training was replaced by anovel location. Associative learning predicts a lower level ofreversal performance in A (as the animal has to inhibit the ac-quired habit of responding to the correct location and, at thesame time, overcome the inhibition of responses to the incor-rect location) than in B, where one of these processes in made

50 Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Vol 4, No 2, March/April 2009

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AWAKE DOG BRAIN MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGINGLilla Toth1,*, Marta Gacsi2, Adam Miklosi2, Peter Bogner1,Imre Repa1

1Institute of Diagnostic Imaging and Radiation Oncology,University of Kaposvar, Hungary2Department of Ethology, Eotvos Lorand University,Hungary*Corresponding author: tlilla@gmail.com

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most popularmodern imaging techniques both in human diagnostic and,increasingly, also in animal science. Social cognition refers toprocesses that subserve behavior in response to conspecifics. Ithas been shown by many ethologic studies that dogs have highsocial cognitive abilities with respect to humans and this raisesthe question of which kind of cerebral mechanisms play a rolein the organization of these high socio-cognitive attainments.On the basis of the revealed behavioral analogies betweenhumans and dogs, we plan to explore if functional and/oranatomic neurologic analogies also exist between humansand dogs in brain areas crucial in human socio-cognitiveprocesses. The aim of this study was to investigate whetherour new methodology is applicable in functional MRI of thebrains of fully conscious and non-sedated dogs.Scanning awake dogs (without narcotics, anesthesia, orrestraint) has been, so far, without precedent, because ofseveral methodologic problems. We have worked out anexamination method for awake dogs that includes a specialtraining session in which we habituate and train the dogs step-by-step for functional MRI (fMRI) examination. During the

training the subjects learn to ignore the noise and vibration ofthe magnetic resonance (MR) machine and remain immobileduring the scan. Several MR images were acquired using a1.5 T MR scanner, and Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM)was applied to the images postprocessing.We obtained appropriate anatomic images of 2 awake dogs’brains that could be used for diagnostic and functional MRIinterpretation. These images have comparable quality toimages obtained from anesthetized dogs. In the case offMRI, we have taken significant steps toward a universallyusable research method.Although MRI studies on animal subjects have severalmethodologic difficulties, we developed a new method thatcan be used to carry out MRI or fMRI scans in dogs withoutthe need for sedation or anesthesia. Our results could providecrucial information for veterinarians and researchers whoinvestigate the neural mechanisms of animals’ responses toexternal stimuli. This technique also could be an alternativeprotocol, especially in cases when, for some reason, anes-thesia is not possible.

Key words: awake dog; functional MRI; new methodology