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Preschoolers Make Fewer Errors on an Object Categorization Task in the Presence of a Dog
Gee, Nancy R.; Church, Meredith T.; Altobelli, Christie L.

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, Volume 23, Number 3, September 2010 , pp. 223-230(8)

Previous research has shown that the presence of a dog can positively impact the speed at which preschoolers perform motor skills tasks and also their ability to adhere to instructions. The current study focused on the execution of a cognitive task—object categorization—by developmentally delayed and typical preschool children in the presence of a real dog, a stuffed dog, or a human. The real dog involved in this study was a Miniature Poodle. The children (n = 12) were asked to complete a match-to-sample task in which they had to choose a picture of an object that “goes with” another. Three categories of object exemplars were used: taxonomic, thematic, and irrelevant. The presence of the real dog resulted in significantly fewer irrelevant choices than either the stuffed dog or the human conditions. Additionally, results in this experiment were consistent with previous research, showing a developmental shift where younger children were more likely to make taxonomic than thematic choices, with the reverse true of the older children. These results indicate that the presence of the real dog does not appear to alter typical performance patterns seen in object categorization, but the fact that fewer errors were made in the presence of the dog indicates that the presence of the dog does have a positive impact on performance of this cognitive task. The authors discuss several possible explanations for this outcome.

Gee, Nancy R.; Crist, Elise N.; Carr, Daniel N.

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, Volume 23, Number 2, June 2010

This paper presents two experiments that examined memory performance and adherence to instructions for a group of preschool children (n = 12) in the presence of a well-behaved real dog, a stuffed dog, and a human confederate. The children were shown 10 objects in each condition. At test, the children were shown each original object along with a distracter and asked to select the one they had seen before.

As we expected, object recognition performance was at ceiling and no effects were significant. Instructional prompts were recorded in two ways: General prompts included general instructions like "Face this way," whereas Task Specific prompts directed the child to perform specific aspects of the task like "Pick one of these objects." The first experiment involved the use of three-dimensional objects and we found that for both types of prompts, fewer prompts were needed in the Real Dog condition, followed by the Stuffed Dog condition, and the greatest number of prompts was needed in the Human condition.

Esteves, Stephanie Walters; Stokes, Trevor

Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of The Interactions of People & Animals, Volume 21, Number 1, March 2008 , pp. 5-15(11)

 Productive and positive interactions between dogs and humans have been documented in studies using dogs trained as companion animals and as assistants for people with disabilities. In this study, the effects of the presence of a dog on social interactions between three 5-9-year-old children with developmental disabilities and their teacher at an elementary school were analyzed. A single-case experimental design with repeated measures and with replicated effects across participants was employed to assess changes in interactions from baseline to an intervention condition. During baseline, interactions were assessed in the social environment of a room adjacent to the classroom, which had a toy dog and other play materials, during time with the teacher. The experimental change introduced sequentially and systematically across the participants was the additional presence of an obedience-trained dog, a German Shepherd/Labrador Retriever cross. Interactions between the children and their teacher were examined during morning sessions using reliable direct observation interval recording procedures. All participants demonstrated an increase in overall positive initiated behaviors (verbal and non-verbal) toward both the teacher and the dog. The children also showed an overall decrease in negative initiated behaviors. In addition, observational ratings showed positive generalization of improved social responsiveness by the children in their classroom following the completion of the experimental sessions. This study supports the position that children with developmental disabilities benefit from the use of skilled dogs as teaching assistants and therapeutic adjuncts.

Kotrschal, K., and B. Ortbauer.

Anthrozoos, v. 16, p. 147-159, 2003.

To test the idea that dogs have a positive influence on the social behavior of school children, one of three dogs was introduced alternately into a class at an elementary school in Vienna (Austria)attended by 24 children. Most of the 14 boys and ten girls came from first-generation immigrant families. With parental consent, their behavior was videotaped for two hours every week, during "open teaching situations," first during a one-month control period in the absence of dogs, followed by an experimental period of similar duration, when a dog was present in the classroom. Frequency and duration of all observable behaviors of individuals and their interactions were coded from these tapes. Although major individual differences were found in the children's interest in the dog and their behavioral responses, the group became socially more homogenous due to decreased behavioral extremes, such as aggressiveness and hyperactivity. Also, formerly withdrawn individuals became socially more integrated. Effects were more pronounced among the boys. It is concluded that the presence of a dog in a classroom could positively stimulate social cohesion in children and provide a relatively cheap and easy means of improving teaching conditions.

Kidd, R. M., and A. H. Kidd.

Psychological Reports, v. 66, p. 1391-4, 1990. 

50 high school students, 25 boys and 25 girls, were individually interviewed using a series of open-ended questions to analyze the cognitive, affective, and behavioral factors in adolescents' attitudes toward their pets. It was hypothesized that cognitive elements would progress from the concrete operations stage to the formal operations stage, that empathy and perspective taking would continue developing, and that behavioral elements would be closely related to realistically assessed characteristics of pets. Although the data supported the second and third hypotheses, only 30 (60%) of the subjects had reached the formal operations stage of cognition. An unexpected finding was that a higher percentage of high school students than of the grade school students previously studied in 1985 indicated closeness to and love for their pets. Further research was suggested.