A team from Hungary have discovered that dogs are able to recall their owner’s actions, even when they were not specifically instructed to do so, suggesting that dogs, like humans, have what is known as “episodic memory” – memories linked to specific times and places. [...]
While 94.1% of dogs successfully mimicked their owner when expecting to do so, 58.8% correctly copied their owner when unexpectedly asked to “do it!” a minute later, and 35.3% correctly copied their owner when unexpectedly given the commanded an hour later. [...]
The authors note that the rapid drop-off in success rates over time, together with evidence that the command was unexpected, shows that the dogs were recalling events that had not been imbued with importance – suggesting that they were relying on a type of episodic memory. The conclusion, they add, is backed up the dogs’ ability to mimic actions despite having never physically done them before.
“Traditionally episodic memory has been linked to self-awareness but as we do not know whether dogs are self-aware we call it episodic-like memory,” said Fugazza.
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