Conundrums Concerning Canine Color Cognition: Exploring Color Preference in Indian Free-ranging Dogs

Roy, Anamitra (2023) Conundrums Concerning Canine Color Cognition: Exploring Color Preference in Indian Free-ranging Dogs. Masters thesis, Indian Institute of Science Education of Research Kolkata.

Text (MS dissertation of Anamitra Roy (17MS136)) Thesis_17MS136.pdf - Submitted Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (10MB)

Abstract

This thesis, for the first time, explores how color affects choices of dogs, Indian free-ranging dogs to be precise. The findings establish that vision, especially color vision, is indeed a tool that dogs use. This should be a point to note while designing experiments to avoid unintended biases. Indian free-ranging dogs, on a population level, prefer yellow over blue and grey (these are the hues that they see). They show no preference between blue and grey. The strength of the preference might be strong enough that the dogs ignore presence of food elsewhere for some time, but further experiments are needed to accept/deny this particular claim.

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