Join a study on dog-human cooperation with your dog: 3–4 sessions of 1 hour each; dogs of all breeds; ages 6 months to 11 years; Thursdays and Mondays (from April 9 to April 30); CHARLIE DOG DOG TRAINING CENTER.
The study aims to investigate whether dogs are sensitive to human communicative signals that indicate an intention to cooperate in a shared task, and whether they are able to form a preference for reliable human partners over unreliable ones. The test consists of a problem-solving task (the “impossible task”), in which the dog interacts with a container holding food and with two human experimenters who differ in their reliability in maintaining a helping signal. The study seeks to assess whether dogs can distinguish a human partner who is reliable in signaling their commitment to help the dog obtain the hidden food (signal → help; no signal → no help) from a human partner who is unreliable in both signaling their commitment and providing assistance (sometimes signaling and helping, sometimes signaling and not helping; conversely, sometimes not signaling but helping, and sometimes neither signaling nor helping).