Research Overview:
The ability to reason about objects that have disappeared from view, which is known as object permanence, has been studied in many terrestrial animals, but DRC is the first to explore this with marine mammals.
In this study, we taught our dolphins a game in which we hid an object in one of three buckets, and then asked them to find it. (“Where is it?”) The question was whether they would track the object, and then keep in mind where the object is. And they did. But we also discovered some tasks they couldn’t do – such as when we placed the object in a bucket, and then moved the bucket. It’s not certain why this task was difficult for them. One possibility is that they might lack an understanding of moving containers (which don’t exist in their natural environment). Another is that, due to echolocation, they don’t need the ability to mentally track an object that disappears from view. Further research can help us figure out this puzzle.
Object Permanence: Which bucket contains the hidden object?
Tanner investigates the scientific journal Animal Cognition, where DRC published our findings about what dolphins understand about hidden objects.
