title: Citizen Science as a New Tool in Dog Cognition Research.
abstract: Family dogs and dog owners offer a potentially powerful way to conduct citizen science to answer questions about animal behavior that are difficult to answer with more conventional approaches. Here we evaluate the quality of the first data on dog cognition collected by citizen scientists using the Dognition.com website. We conducted analyses to understand if data generated by over 500 citizen scientists replicates internally and in comparison to previously published findings. Half of participants participated for free while the other half paid for access. The website provided each participant a temperament questionnaire and instructions on how to conduct a series of ten cognitive tests. Participation required internet access, a dog and some common household items. Participants could record their responses on any PC, tablet or smartphone from anywhere in the world and data were retained on servers. Results from citizen scientists and their dogs replicated a number of previously described phenomena from conventional lab-based research. There was little evidence that citizen scientists manipulated their results. To illustrate the potential uses of relatively large samples of citizen science data, we then used factor analysis to examine individual differences across the cognitive tasks. The data were best explained by multiple factors in support of the hypothesis that nonhumans, including dogs, can evolve multiple cognitive domains that vary independently. This analysis suggests that in the future, citizen scientists will generate useful datasets that test hypotheses and answer questions as a complement to conventional laboratory techniques used to study dog psychology.
authors.affiliation: Canine Research Department, Canines, Inc., Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Laughlin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America; School of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States of America.
authors.forename: Evan L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: MacLean
authors.affiliation: Canine Research Department, Canines, Inc., Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ivy
authors.affiliation: Canine Research Department, Canines, Inc., Durham, NC, United States of America; Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Woods
authors.affiliation: Canine Research Department, Canines, Inc., Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Eliot
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kerri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.affiliation: Statistics Department, 23 and me, Inc., Mountain View, CA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: McIntyre
authors.affiliation: Departments of Statistical Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, Duke University, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Sayan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mukherjee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, United Kingdom; Department of Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Call
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Juliane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kaminski
authors.affiliation: MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Ádám
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Miklósi
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Wrangham
authors.affiliation: Canine Research Department, Canines, Inc., Durham, NC, United States of America; Department of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America; Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States of America.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hare
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D003071:Cognition; D004285:Dogs / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D011786:Quality Control; D012107:Research Design