With very few exceptions, no coherent model of representing the self exists for nonhuman species. According to our hypothesis, understanding of the Self as an object’ can also be found in a wide range of animals including the dog, a fast-moving terrestrial predator/scavenger, with highly developed senses and complex cognitive capacity. We tested companion dogs in three experiments in which they faced three different variations of the same physical challenge: passing through an opening in a wall. We predicted that if dogs are capable of representing their own body size, they will react differently when faced with adequate or too small openings. We found that dogs started to move towards and approached the too small openings with significantly longer latencies than the suitable ones; and upon reaching it, they did not try to get through the too small openings. In another experiment, the medium-size (still large enough) opening was approached with latencies that fell between the latencies measured in the cases of the very large or the too small openings. Having discussed the potential underlying mechanisms, we concluded that our results convincingly assume that dogs can represent their own body size in novel contexts.

中文翻译：

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那只狗不适合：狗的体型意识

除极少数例外，对于非人类物种而言，不存在代表自我的连贯模型。根据我们的假设，在包括狗在内的多种动物中也可以找到对自我作为对象的理解，狗是一种快速移动的陆地食肉动物/清道夫，具有高度发达的感官和复杂的认知能力。我们在三个实验中对伴侣犬进行了测试，其中它们面临相同物理挑战的三种不同变化：穿过墙壁上的开口。我们预测，如果狗能够代表自己的体型，则面对足够或太小的开口时，它们的反应会有所不同。我们发现，狗开始朝着太小的开口移动并接近这些开口，而延时比合适的要长得多。到达后 他们没有试图穿过过小的开口。在另一个实验中，以中等大小（仍足够大）的开口接近延迟，该延迟介于开口很大或太小的情况下测得的延迟之间。在讨论了潜在的潜在机制后，我们得出结论，我们的结果令人信服地假设狗可以在新颖的环境中代表自己的身体大小。