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Comment by ggchappell | Hacker News Reader

This raises all kinds of cognitive questions. How do the dogs figure out how to achieve their goals using the subways? Is it trial-and-error, resulting in a step-by-step procedure that is followed by rote? Or do they form some kind of a mental model of the subway system? In the former case, a dog would be completely lost if a train fails to show, but in the latter, they might be able to adapt.

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They form a mental model, called a cognitive map [1]. This is classic cognitive science, discovered by Tolman's famous 1940's experiments on rats in mazes [2]. The experimantal setup is simple yet brilliant. He allowed rats to learn a path from a fixed starting location to a fixed endpoint with food. He then changed their starting location, and the rats would immediately adapt their path, showing that they had learned a mental map rather than simple input/output responses.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_map

[2] http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/tolman.htm#T...

That's wonderfully informative stuff; thanks for posting.

BTW, I notice, in the WP article:

> In a review by Bennett[8] it is argued that there are no clear evidence for cognitive maps in non-human animals (i.e. cognitive map according to Tolman's definition). This argument is based on analyses of studies where it has been found that simpler explanations can account for experimental results.

It's possible that some of the dogs were either previously owned by someone who used that route or were following around a friendly stranger. There's a cat in my neighborhood who will follow me around since I give her food occasionally, and I imagine stray dogs might behave similarly.

Once they've used the subway a few times, they probably learn to distinguish the sounds and smells of the stops they're interested in. Even if they can't read or understand spoken announcements, most dogs seem to figure out what vehicles are for without much trouble.

Once one or more dogs have learned this trick, transfer of information kicks in. At the end of the day, the other dogs at the shelter can probably tell who ate well that day, and they're likely to want to go with that dog to see where the food is at. The subway dog may even encourage his friends to come along; most of us have probably seen and understood a dog's "hey come with me and see this thing" signals, and dogs are pack animals.

Perhaps the dogs have already been all over the city, and can differentiate stops by the smells of the micro-localities that they recognize from the past.

Smell fresh meat/produce, get off in Chinatown.

Smell the sea, get off by the river, etc..

Yeah, I wonder if there are any in-depth studies on these dogs.

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