Dogs (Canis familiaris) copy-all refine-later where children (Homo sapiens) overimitate.

What is it about?

Overimitation is a kind of learning strategy where someone will repeat all of the actions demonstrated to them, even if not all actions are needed to complete the end goal. Human children have been shown to overimitate on a variety of tasks. It is debated whether domestic dogs use this same learning strategy. This study gave both dogs and children the same puzzle task to assess if they overimitate. Children did overimitate, but dogs used a different learning strategy called "copy-all refine-later." Dogs started by copying the irrelevant action, but stopped as they solved the task again and again.

Featured Image

Photo by mali desha on Unsplash

Photo by mali desha on Unsplash