Dogs And Tolman's Cognitive Maps

In 1948, Edward Tolman proposed the idea of cognitive maps. The concept was that the brain learned about spacial relationships, such as navigating a maze, without reinforcement. Such talk at the time, was considered heresy by the S-R (stimulus-response) crowd, and his work was forgotten. Eventually, scientists took a second look at his ideas and decided they were quite relevant. 

 

Here is the basic idea. Take a population of rats, put them each in mazes and let them look around. Later, take each of those rats, put them at any entry of the maze, and let them figure out that in a certain room in the maze, there is food. Take a second population of rats, put them in mazes they have never been in before, and let them figure out that in a certain room, there is food. Now have the rats enter other doorways to the same mazes and have them find the room with the food. Result? The rats that had the chance to look around first learned to finish the mazes faster. Some of the second group of rats never learned how to navigate the maze test.

 

Why is this important? Because the S-R crowd said all learning required some kind of reinforcement first. Reward for going this way, punishment for going that way. The map idea meant that an animal could learn about an area without needing reinforcement to find their way.

 

Now, a real-world example. I think I have all the details correctly remembered. A student of mine took her dog for a regular 1-mile walk to a nearby park frequently. One day, at the park, she tied the dog's leash to a chair and went into a building to buy an ice cream treat. While she was in there, something startled the dog, it moved, the chair fell over, that startled her, and she ran off. She saw her dog running away with the chair bouncing along behind her. She tried calling her to Come, but she was too afraid. The chair eventually became untangled from the leash, but the dog kept running. 

 

The owner was in a panic as she ran after her dog, but try as she could, she was too fast, and she lost her. The owner looked all over the park. Discouraged, she went home. Her dog was at her front door. This dog had not only run across the park at an angle that the dog had never walked before, but it had also run across a very busy road, and through her neighborhood, and made it home. 

 

That dog, I'm 100% convinced, had developed a mental map of the area and that facilitated how that dog got home. 

 

This idea of mental maps is why I am a big advocate for taking your dog for walks all over your neighborhood. Think of it this way. If it was relatively safe to allow your dog to roam the neighborhood, your dog would most likely come home every day. They would know the neighborhood. Outdoor cats do this all the time. In suburban and urban areas, it isn't safe to do this, but a dog can still develop a mental map of where they live. I also believe that these walks shouldn't be like a military parade in which the dog can only just be glued to the owner's side and not have a chance to sniff and look around as you take a walk. 

 

Does this guarantee that your dog will find its way back home if it gets out the door? I can't guarantee that. But I do believe it probably increases the probability they can do so. I also think there are some exercises you can do with dogs to help them find home, such as off leash nature walks, tracking/ trailing training, hunting dog work, and some special obedience work (especially in the neighborhood). If a dog has never had a chance to discover how to find you, that hinders them. And if a dog has never had a chance to explore the neighborhood, I think the chances of them returning on their own are even less likely.

 

I had a second student that had something similar happen. In this case, the front door was left open by her roommate. Her little white fluffy dog got out into the neighborhood. We had been doing exercises prior to that in the lessons for her dog to find her. She called her dog several times, kept calling. The dog came home. She saw her pop her head around a corner over a block away, and it ran to her. I think all of this contributed to helping her dog come back. 

 

Something to consider. 

 

Both dogs were fine in the end. The first dog was a bit shaken up, but a few days of fun and the dog was back to normal. The second dog hadn't been through such a traumatic event, so there wasn't a need to help her recover.