Dogs Do Not Prefer Treats Over Praise From Owner

More dogs prefer praise from their owners instead of food as a reward

According to a new study published online in the journal Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience more dogs prefer praise from their owners instead of food as a reward.

The finding by Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns attended a different method of investigation: while the dog was awake and unrestrained, an MRI was scanning the dog’s brain to assess how they would respond to various behavioral investigations conducted by the researchers. A unique methodology that studies the brains of the alert man’s best friend was used to explore their minds.

Berns convinced 13 dog owners in the Atlanta area to let their dogs join the study. He wanted dogs that would be able to remain calm for 30 minutes, meaning gentler, less high-energy canines such as retrievers were required.

In the first experiment, the dogs were presented photos of a toy car, a hairbrush, and a toy horse. Following the first object, they were given food, praise after the second one, and nothing for the third. A second experiment was created to confirm the findings.

During this second test, a subset of the dogs was not praised, and the brain images were alike. The lead author of the study declared that the animal reacted strongly to praise during the first experiment were more disappointed when they received nothing during the second test.

In the third experiment, the dogs which were placed in a maze had to choose between being praised by their owner or finding a bowl of food. Only two of the dogs concentrated on the bowl while the others either preferred getting praised by their owners over food or they seemed to like both evenly.

The findings can be used to improve dog training or to help distinguish which of them might be qualified as service animals.

Men’s best friend who prefers social reward over food might be suitable for particular therapeutic or assistance jobs. However, the ones that preferred the food could be more qualified for jobs that are more independent from humans like search-and-rescue missions.

The team’s present goal is investigating dogs’ capacity to process and interpret human language.

Image source: Flickr

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.