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Originally Posted by Ice Lady  Very Interesting article. It will be interesting to see the final analysis of these experiments.
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I agree it is an interesting article, and I, too, would be interested in the results. However, I would hope they are more careful with their experimentation and their conclusions than the description of the experiment with "guilt" because their experiment did not support their conclusions.
What they were trying to prove was whether or not dogs feel guilt. They note that a dog will slink when it is scolded for doing something wrong. To test if this has to do with guilt, they scolded a dog when it did nothing wrong. Since it also slinked then, they conclude that a dog slinks when it is scolded and that this, therefore, means that the dog is not slinking because of guilt.
With all due respect, "Duh!"
Let us say we conduct a different experiment. In the first test, you get punched in the arm when you can see it coming. It is observed that you flinch. In the second test, you, again, get punched in the arm, but this time you can't see it coming. It is again observed that you flinch. Does the fact that you flinch whether or not you see it coming prove that flinching only has to do with actually getting hit? No. You cannot possibly draw that conclusion because the experiment always results in you getting the same stimulus, getting hit. Thus, the only valid conclusion you can draw from this experiment is that getting punched causes flinching. Whether or not flinching results from other stimulus cannot be determined from this experiment.
Similarly, in both cases in the "guilt experiment," the dog was scolded whether it did anything wrong or not. Thus, the only thing that that experiment proves is that you can get a dog to slink if you scold it. Whether or not a dog will slink from different stimulus, guilt for example, was never tested.
At its most basic, guilt is recognition of having done something wrong. It doesn't matter whether this recognition is the result of higher cognitive functions resulting from concepts of universal rights and wrongs from religious or philosophical principles or as basic as an understanding of having violated socially acceptable behavior (as would be the case for a dog). But it is more than just a recognition of having done something wrong. The concept of guilt also includes an anticipation of consequences. Because of this, the experiment failed to prove that dogs don't have a concept of guilt.
To prove that a dog understands it did something wrong, you have to prove that it anticipates consequences for its actions. In our arm-punch experiment, the equivalent would be to simulate a punch when the person can see you, but not actually strike the person, and see if they do still flinch. Because they still flinch, you can conclude that flinching can also result from a person anticipating the consequence of the punch, not just the results of the actual punch.
But since you cannot directly cause a dog to do something and expect him to feel guilt, this would likely not be an easy experiment experiment to setup. This is especially compounded by the fact that the dog will only understand his connection to an action for a relatively short time. That is, just like it is counter-productive to give a dog negative consequences for a behavior that occurred hours ago because the dog will not make the connection, you can't expect a dog to feel guilty about a behavior it did hours ago. You have to catch him doing something he knows he should not be doing.
However, anecdotally at least, there are some fairly good indications that dogs do have the sense of anticipation of consequences, and therefore, a sense of having done something wrong. One does not have to own a dog for very long to run across a situation where you come in the door or come around a corner and the first thing you notice is your dog slinking or hanging its head even before you see the puddle on the floor or wet spot on the carpet, the scraps of food that used to be the sandwich you left on the counter, the shredded paper on the floor that used to be in the trash, and so on. Since you observed his reaction
before you saw the cause of his reaction, he is anticipating your displeasure, not reacting to anything you are doing. This is a fairly good indication that he knows what he has done is socially unacceptable behavior and is anticipating negative consequences. In other words, he is reacting to a sense of guilt, not an unpleasant stimulus.
I suppose the experiment would have to be doing something like setting a temptation on a counter for a dog that knows the counter is off-limits and leaving him by himself and observing him until he gives into the temptation and takes it. Then, either as he is in the middle of the action or right as he gets down, come in without reacting and observe his reactions. In my experience, the dog will give indications he knows he should not have done what he did and react in anticipation of negative consequences.
Regardless, whether you could ever prove a dog does or does not have anything resembling a sense of guilt, the experiment they did doesn't even begin to address the concept of guilt. So I would hope that they are more careful in their methods and conclusions in further studies.