ArticleScientific reports2021
Dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize their own body as a physical obstacle.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- The modal-modular model of animal self-representation: a comparative and operational framework.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Influence of agility training on body-size and object solidity perception in pet dogs.PloS one · 2026Article
- Comparing the Performances of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Two Self-Awareness Tasks.American journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Body Awareness Does Not Need a Pedigree: Mixed-Breed Dogs Rely More on Self-Representation Than Social Learning in a Spatial Task.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Wistar Male Rats (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Cats are (almost) liquid!-Cats selectively rely on body size awareness when negotiating short openings.iScience · 2024Article
- Body size awareness matters when dogs decide whether to detour an obstacle or opt for a shortcut.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Ferrets (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Commentary: Dog Stick Chewing: An Overlooked Instance of Tool Use?Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Hooded Crows (Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mental representations of one's own body provide useful reference when negotiating physical environmental challenges. Body-awareness is a neuro-ontogenetic precursor for higher order self-representation, but there is a lack of an ecologically valid experimental approach to it among nonhuman species. We tested dogs (N = 32) in the 'body as an obstacle' task. They had to pick up and give an object to their owner, whilst standing on a small mat. In the test condition we attached the object to the mat, thus the dogs had to leave the mat because otherwise they could not lift the object. Dogs came off the mat more frequently and sooner in the test condition, than in the main control condition, where the object was attached to the ground. This is the first convincing evidence of body awareness through the understanding of the consequence of own actions in a species where previously no higher-order self-representation capacity was found. We urge for an ecologically valid approach, and following of bottom-up methods, in studying modularly constructed self-representation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.