Odor Memory in Detector Dogs
Abstract
This project will investigate the remembering of odors by dogs and the effects of latency in exposure to those odors in maintaining a response that they have been trained to emit in the presence of those odors. Additionally, we will examine the effects of latency of odor exposure on stimulus generalization; the extent to which dogs respond to odors similar to those on which they were trained. Two groups of 9 dogs will be trained to search for and alert to the odor from 10 different materials. The searching and alert responses of one group will be maintained with regular training on one of the 10 odors and then tested for their recognition and searching for a subsets of the other 9 odors at 3, 6, and 12 months. The other group of dogs will receive notraining or exposure to any of the 10 odors for 12 months after their initial training and then be tested for their recognition and searching for those odors. Additionally, both groups of dogs will be tested for their recognition and searching for odors similar to those that were initially trained at each testing point. The resulting data shall elucidate fundamental characteristics of theremembering of odors and effects of latency of training with those odors on maintaining odor recognition and vigilance in searching for those odors. These data will inform the methodology for detector dog training and operational use leading to procedures to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of such training and improvement of operational performance.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 23, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141613053
Entities
People
- Lowell Waggoner
Organizations
- Auburn University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy