Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Intuitive physical concepts help humans navigate the world. One such concept, object containment, has been studiedextensively in infants and nonhuman primates. Evidence indicates objects hidden inside of containers are more difficultto find than covered or occluded objects, possibly due to the prerequisite understanding that containers are hollow. Dogsencounter containers in daily life, and canine studies commonly require subjects to locate hidden treats. The presentresearch provides the first test of the hypothesis that dogs, like primates, find it harder to make inferences about containmentcompared to other hiding events. To address this hypothesis, across 24 trials dogs (N=90) searched between 2 possiblelocations, one of which concealed a treat. They watched 3 different methods of hiding: i) inside containers, ii) behindcontainers, and iii) under containers. As predicted, dogs were less likely to locate treats inside containers. Results will bediscussed in a comparative context.