Do You Recall? Using the Senses to Make Sense of a Dog's Short Term Memory

Overview

Objectives/Goals My objective was to learn which of a dog's sense of sight, smell, or hearing has the greatest affect on their short term memory (5 minutes or less). Methods/Materials Using four dogs of approximately the same age, I tested each of their senses of sight, smell, and hearing by having them smell, see, or hear an object under one of the three buckets on the ground. I would then take them out of the room for intervals increasing by ten seconds. I would then let them off the lead and back into the room, where they would go to the bucket they remembered the object/toy/treat being under. If they were correct, I would move the object to a different bucket, and they would be taken out of the room for a longer period of time. If they could no longer remember twice in a row, I recorded the last interval of time they could remember for as their final time. Results My hypothesis was correct - the dogs could remember using their sense of smell for the longest period of time. The average times for the four dogs were: smell: 77.5 seconds, sight: 70 seconds, hearing: 42.5 seconds. Conclusions/Discussion In conclusion, a dog's sense of smell has the greatest affect on their short term memory.

Competition history

• CSEF 2005 Behavioral Sciences · Entry J0303

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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