SYSK Selects: How do dogs perceive time?

it again. That's awesome. Chuck's barking because this is stuff you should know. And this particular stuff you should know is entitled how do Dogs Perceived Time? And I said in dog language just then, I don't perceive time. That is up for debate, my friend, up for vigorous debate. All right, So Chuck, um, let me let me do a little intro here, a little lead in segue. Whatever spoiled your parade? There? What do we call them these days?

What do we what segways? Lead In's introstro schke Um, Chuck, about a year ago, well, a year ago this month, Paris, well, France, Paris, France made history, legal history. So uh, they actually used a dog as a witness in a criminal case. Did they get the dog to like bark at someone? Wow? I kid you not like an intruder at the very least. And I hope I'm not a Bangladeshi newspaper here, um because I found it, uh in the Daily Mail, which is not known for satire, but it's all. It can

be known for poor reporting from time to time. So you may have egg on your face soon we'll find out. Um. But there was a dog named Scooby that was brought into a doesn't it I should afford to this article? Um, there is a dog named Scooby that was brought into a murder case or a hearing to see if there was enough evidence to try a man for murder for something that was ruled the suicide. And the dog barked furiously at the alleged perpetrator and they gave him a

Scooby snack. Yeah, so that was the last I heard. It was from a year ago, but there was some concern over whether the dog's memory would serve it or not because it had been two and a half years since the incident. Okay, that makes sense, and that's kind of key to how dogs may or may not perceive times. The best I could come up with, that's thanks, so um what that What that betrays is a sense by at least the reporter and the courts in Paris that dogs have a memory, that they they If they have

a memory, then they should be able to perceive time. Right, Chuck, let's talk about this. What is time? Kidding me? Well, you know my whole deal with time, I've said it before. What a little time is just abstract numbers on a calendar and and hands on a watch, aren't time? Well yeah, no, what you're talking about is the human construct of time. Yes, based on twenty four hours, which is all kind of arbitrary seven days in a week there, well, not necessarily

were Here's why. Uh, it was actually kind of ingenious that we should come up with the twenty four hour day because we have these things called circadian oscillators, yes, which are the well they're the fluctuators in our circadian rhythm, which is what makes us fall asleep at night, work

up in the morningperaure get hungry at certain times. Neural activity, right, the neural activity and the hormones UM are reactions to things like changes in temperature that are on a daily basis UM, things like um, the changes in natural light right right, So our our reactions to these are circadian oscillators. And if you put them all together, like sleeping at night and and um waking up in the morning, that's our circadian rhythm. But the circadian clocks actually exist on

about a twenty four hour period. That makes sense then. So but like you said, days on the calendar and all that, that's that is a human construct. Yeah, So what we're trying to get to the bottom of is whether or not dogs can perceive this not necessarily the human construct of time, but of time in and of itself, which is essentially a past present in future exactly. And I know that one thing that we will talk about, and maybe we'll talk about right now is you have

three dogs? Do you have any dogs? I have two dogs? What shut up? I have two dogs, and I'm actually fostering two feral puppy rescues, which you know, so right now, if you want to get rid of those two dogs, because we could get rid of them like that if we plug this on this UM on this podcast, we're kind of picky about who we give them to. Okay, well, how about this, if you're not a cre and you love dogs and you live in the East Lake area, Atlanta, to send us an email if you want one of

Chuck's puppies. Very cute. Yeah, so, anyway, if your dogs are anything like my dogs, they and actually my cats too, they know when the food bell is going to ring. Sure, actually they start. Emily calls it food abuse. They start the food abuse typically about an hour and a half before they typically get fed every afternoon and in the morning. We feed them pretty much straight away in the morning,

so they know. They know then. But my dog Lucy dude comes in the room and looks at you with her head cocked, stamps on the floor with her feet and goes m and I'm waiting her for her literally to one day say feed me one day. I told him if she did that one day, I would be surprised for about a second. So, Chuck, here is where we reached the bone of contention. The sorry for that pun, I'm not Jonathan Stricklin. Your dogs do the same thing, though, right, Well, no,

my my dogs are fed constantly. They always have food. They for some reason, I'd lucked out, and they they just eat eat whenever they want, whenever. I can't imagine that. It's pretty cool, Like dogs eat their food like it's the first time they've ever been fed before. My dogs they're pretty laid back when it comes to stuff like that. Are they fat? No? Really, No, they're they're healthier than I am. Well, they're healthier than a lot of people

I know. No, they're very They regulate their food and take on their own It's weird, but but I know what you're talking about. So the question is this, do your dogs no, based on past experience that food is coming at a certain time of day, not necessarily like five thirty five pm, but say as far as the dog's concerned, when sun is low and sky over there. Ye know, they're they're like Italians playing Native Americans, right, what you think, I'm dumbbell? So um? Or is it

a start kadiean oscillator? Well, that's the circadian oscillator. It could be, yeah, it could be. What what that is is you're they're using their memories of past experiences to predict the future, which is episodic memory, which is our construction of time. Or is this semantic memory, which is totally different but related. Do you want me to go into this because this is outside research, I have no choice.

Then semantic memory is alright, Chuck. Let's say that you have brain damage to your phontel loane in fact, which is where your episodic memory is h is located. That's

the region that controls episodic memory, which is learning from experience. Right. Um, you could conceivably learn how to play chess right, right, but you won't remember where you learn how to play chess, right, much like uh, they say a baby learned how to walk and talk, but they don't remember that day you taught me how to walk, right, They don't have to relearn crawling or walking or taught on a day to day basis, right, because they learned it. And that's semantic memory.

That's like facts and rules and and and possibly motor movements or whatever. Or you know, if I run into this wall, it's going to hurt my face because I'm crawling, But they don't remember, you know, somebody teaching them like, come crawl to me that kind of thing, right, So yeah, that's semantic memory. Episodic memory would be like, um, what did you have for breakfast this morning? At a fruit smoothie? You had a fruit smoothie. Remember what delight look like?

I remember what what smelled like. That is precisely episodic memory. And uh, I should probably give a shout out at t RS and tall, who I'm like just blatantly ripping off right now. Um. The the chess example was one of Zental's uh examples of semantic memory. And what you've just said, um is almost word for word, Uh, an example of episodic memory. You said, you know you remember these other details, whereas had you said, um, I had I had a smoothie this morning, I must have because

I have a smoothie. Right, that would be well, not the burping part, but if you always had it, and that'd be more like semantic memories. So we reached the question do dogs perceived time or are these reactions that appear like they're there keeping track of time some way, maybe through a circadian oscillator, based on semantic memories. And there's been a lot of studies that, not necessarily on dogs, but on other animals. Right, Yeah, what's uh, what's this

crackpot's name Roberts, No, what's this guy's name Dr Roberts. Yeah, I have to say I'm gonna take issue with Dr robertson William Roberts. He's an animal cognition researcher right off the bat. You're taking issue with that, not that part. Yeah. He did some studies on pigeons and primates to name a couple, and long term in short term memory as far as remembering a sequence that they would I guess the pigeons would peck it out and the primates would

tap it out and uh to get a reward. And they found that they have pretty good short term memory for this kind of thing, right, which is what that's working memory, right, yes, but long term as reference memory, Yeah, but as far as the reference goes, they couldn't remember it that well if there was if there was a big break in between, right. Um. Roberts actually wrote a very famous paper as far as animal cognition goes, where he basically said that he concluded animals are stuck in time.

And I just made air quotes for those of you out there listening in podcast land, Um, and by stuck in timing means that they they live exclusively in the present, that they don't have the capacity for forming uh, long term episodic memory. Episodic is the key word. It is very much they because I know at home you're saying, no, I taught my dog to sit when she was one.

That's not the same thing. That's what we're talking about with the baby and learning how to walk, right, Um, but that's that's not There's a lot of examples out there in nature that would kind of um, but lie Dr Roberts idea that your animals or dogs are stuck in time. Well, A good one is squirrels foraging food store for the winner and doing it year after year

after year. Um. I believe Roberts actually addressed that and says, but they continue hoarding even when their stores inexplicably disappear, which I assume some researchers went and stole squirrels nuts and then uh studied them to see what they would do. I don't understand that at all. I don't either. Seems like they would that would make them want to hoard. Yeah, so I kind of have an issue with that one a little bit. But it's possible. I'm not entirely seeing

that point all the way. I don't see the point. I'm not quite sure what what he meant there. But um, there's also one about the bananas, right, Chuck. The is there are some primates that were given choices between more or less bananas. Yeah, and predictably at first, if you offered an ape one banana or two bananas, they're gonna

take the two bananas. But they found that when they started increasing the number of bananas, like ten compared to twenty, they would just go for the tin bananas, they wouldn't he and he thought this meant they can't. Uh, they have no concept of the future, like maybe I should take these bananas because I might be hungry tomorrow right now. That's um that I think Roberts fails to take into

account social structure, right. Uh. We we know that we could use tim bananas for tomorrow, but we also have things like um, preservation techniques or refrigeration available. That's what I thought too. And if you go back in time, just a few thousand years ago, um, two hunter gatherer societies or even hunter gatherer societies that are around now, they don't store food at all. They forage for what

they need right then, and that's what they eat. I would imagine that that would actually explain a lot of the primate decisions. There's no real reason to their society isn't set up on this idea that I need more and more to protect myself in the future, exactly. I don't know that that necessarily means that they don't have any concept of the future. I think that there's all these other explanations out there, right, and they may like one. I was when I read that. The first thing I

thought was, maybe they're not. They've never taken more than tin bananas in their life because they've never needed to, so it doesn't even dawn on them that that should be something they would do. Exactly. I guess what we're saying, both of us around the same page here. There are other explanations, and I think one of the things I took from this article was that, uh Roberts found it conclusive that animals are stuck in time by cherry picking some uh some studies here, and we we kind of

disagree with them. Yeah, there's a lot of other factors. I know that my dog Lucy is stuck in time at five thirty pm every day because she's always asking for the food. So I guess another problem. It's entirely possible. Check that we're Our brains just aren't big enough to Uh, they're not as big as Robert's brain. Um, did you ever hear that? Like, goldfish have an eight second memory span? I've never heard that, So I have a right you have a goldfish and I do have a goldfish here? Yeah, Molly,

she's very cute. Its name Molly. I didn't know that. Interesting. Um, But having an episodic memory makes it almost impossible to think about um not having one. So like, if a goldfish does have a memory of eight seconds, does that mean that every eight seconds all of its memories are purged, like getting rid of the browser history in your computer? Um? Or as new experiences come into the present, are older ones pushed out after they hit this eight second maturity level?

And how how do they test that on a goldfish? Anyway? Perfect chuck, perfect segue. Here's the biggest problem. Robert's position is almost inherently species ist. You're familiar with this term, Yeah, this is a legitimate term. I'm not making this up. Animals have no souls. Animals don't have souls. It's impossible for an like a dog to be happy because that's a secondary emotion and are self aware enough. There's a

competing explanation for all of this, um. Species ists tend to rely very strictly or remain very strictly within the structure um provided by the scientific method and all his studies here, he probably came out from that frame of mind.

Sure right, UM. But there's another way of looking at it, and that is that humans simply haven't come up with tests that are clever enough to get definitive proof that an animal can experience happiness, or can or is aware of time, the future, of the past, that kind of thing. You can take that way too far, like after you know, test after test after test that proves the opposite, you could still conceivably say, well, there's a test out there that that we haven't come up with you proves that

they can. Um. But I think that the testing that has been done is very much below that threshold so far. I don't think we have a clue, um, what we animals are capable of as far as consciousness goes, because we have such a loose grasp on our own consciousness. Sure, and we can't uh certainly can't delve into an animal's brain and see what they think and they can't tell us anything. I guarantee you one thing. I bet you

Dr Roberts is not a dog owner. Agreed. Agreed, because you have dogs, dude, and I guarantee you we're going to get tons of mail from people saying, are you kidding? My dog displays emotion every day? And you know, I guess Caesar that the dog whisper might say, you know that's you're putting your human construct on the dogs. From my mind, yeah, anthrow anthropomorphizing. Yeah, I don't know, man, my dog is they're both pretty emotional. Well, yeah, Anthropomorphizing

is the go to ammunition for species ists. And I don't want, I don't mean to say that anybody who's saying, like, no, animals can't be happy because it's secondary emotion and they lack that sense of self awareness that required to experience this, uh secondary emotion is a species ist. But the too

often go hand in hand. And it's really interesting that there's a line drawn right now between people who think animals don't have a soul and people who think animals can be happy and all of the implications that come with that. Jerry, I bet you think your dog is a soul right, Jerry saying yeah, just to give the sweetest face and nodded yes, yes. So, um, I feel like Chuck and I just opened a big old canned worms.

So we'll see how this plays out in the emails, right, if you want to read more about dogs perceiving time to answer the question, according to Roberts, no, dogs don't perceive time times a human construct consisting of a past, present, in future and dogs pretty much living the present. Chuck and I don't necessarily agree with that one. Uh, you can go on and type in dogs perceived time in the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com. Since I just said that, it means it's time for

a whole mess of listener mail. You're right, Josh, this is uh. We're just gonna call this Muppet mail, and we are gonna go on a little longer than usual with our mail because the Muppet podcast, I think we will all agree, um, was sort of a c change episode, and plus we just want to see how how long this background music actually goes for I know, I mean, we we literally got better response from the Muppet Show episode than anything we've ever done. I would say, wouldn't you. Yeah,

the Henson company twittered about it. Yeah, Heather Henson, we should say our colleague and friend, Jonathan Strickland of tex Staff his uh sister sister friends with Heather Henson, and it went viral thanks to him. Yeah, that's awesome. So we got great response. It's clear that everyone loves the Muppets and uh so I wanted to go just through a few of these because I didn't want to just do one um quickly before we start, and we never do this, but a guy sent me an email and

I kind of touched a chord with me. So I want to quickly give a shout out for for Joe to Beth in Ellwood, Indiana, and Joe just wants to say that he thinks that you are a pretty cool chick. Beth, Chuck, are you playing matchmaker? Is that why you're wearing nothing but a diaper and you have those wing I'm not saying, but Beth and Elwood, Joe, Joe thinks your cool chicken. So the week because she actually sent us a alien hand syndrome video which rocked cool. That's good. I'll show

it to you quick. A couple of things that we didn't mention in corrections First of all, Um, I mistakenly referred to the Children's Television Workshop as the Children's Television Network, So I goove that one. You're thinking of home shopping that kids. We did not mention every Muppet movie. We did not mention every Muppet venture because no want, I want to late on this. We did that on purpose. First of all, we mentioned the three that were in

theatrical Elite release directed by Jim Henson. Yes, and by first of all, I mean that's it right right. So a lot of people said, how could you not mention Muppets Christmas Carol? And we wanted to mention everything, but we we would have been sitting here reading things all day long about the Dark Crystal and other Muppet ventures, so we chose to only do the Henson ones. Would I have to say Dark Crystal keeps me out? And that was Hinton too, because I know people gonna write

and say that was Hinson, but get over it. Uh. We had a gun and Peter wrote in and he told us about the Muppet Whatnot Workshop? Yeah, and um and uh, and you can go to New York City and you could do it online. But I looked and it's down right now. But it's just around Christmas time or the holidays. No, they got bought out by Toys r Us. I think. So that's down right now. But

you can still go to New York. You can go to the Muppet Workshop and you can build your own whatnot at Goldman says it costs about a hundred bucks. And he sent me a picture of he and his little cute daughter with her Muppet whatnot. So you want to thank Peter for that. And actually I'm going on and on, but Peter had one of the big food and choo mustaches like me, Yeah, I'll tell you about this. And I said, uh, very cool, Peter, thanks for sending this.

I said, it looks like you picked up a mustache while you were there. And he wrote back and said, no, I got that at the Sam Elliott. Uh Sam Elliott Supply Center down the street or something like that. Peter's of pack a picnic supper. Um. So that is all for the corrections. Now we have a few emails. Um, Josh and Chuck it just listen to how Muppets worked. I was excited to hear you talk about it because you mentioned the costume designer from Miss Piggie who happens

to be my aunt Callista. Oh wow she uh. If you look up the Muppet Movie you can see her in the costume and wardrobe department on IMDb. She worked closely with Henson, and I've actually seen a picture of her with Jim Henson setting up some Muppets and Emmett Honor's jug Bane Christmas. She left the Muppets, I think when Jim Henson died, but we still see her once a year. That's from Sam and Josh is in fact eating a Reese's cup. Uh onto the next one. Hi, guys,

I love your recent podcast. I was listening and thought I would mention that Jim Henson studied muppetology at University of Maryland. I know this because I went to school there and there as a Jim Hinson studies program, and it is our claim to fame. UM. I didn't know he went to my school until I went there. And there's actually a little a bench statue. It's a bench with Henson sitting on it and Kerment sitting on the back of the bench and they're kind of holding hands.

That is beyond cute. It is very cute. So and and she also says that UM, This is from Lesia that they have the rights to. It ain't easy being green and Rainbow connection, So their marching band actually plays that. The University of Maryland turps moving on. Man, listen to this background music. Chuck is, I know, I know, I know. We compared him up. It showed to thirty Rock, and Phil of Lyndon, Washington has this to say, Um, I was trying to imagine Sesame Street would look like in

real life. Two little boys getting there, an apartment, a giant bird that sleeps behind garbage cans, a few scattered, seemingly sensible adults who really have no jobs and nothing else to do. No Mr Hooper at a store that finally it hit me while working my job as a special led classroom assistant. It is one big, government operated group home facility special needs children and adults. Think about it.

Bert displays classic Asperger syndrome. They share a bedroom, uh and obviously have some adult taking care of the rest of their house. Oscar is schizophrenic with his mood swings and a warm is the best friend as his big bird with his imaginary friend. Uh. Was it sniffle lupus and h tell me Grover's not dealing with severe a d h D and Cookie Monster from manic bipolar tendencies. And the jobless adults Gordon, Susan and Bob. So that's from Phil are the jobless adults are the caregivers. He

says her jobless adults, I've got two more. Uh. Jerry's laughing at how long this is going, but I warned her. I was listening to your fantastic podcast and I had to write in I am getting married at the Hinton sound stage next year. That's so cool. Uh. He and his wife to be towards the sound stage. It was like being behind the scenes at the Muppet Show. We're honored as the first wedding ever to be hosted there. And I asked him a runa backs, like, dude, what's

the hook up? And he had none. He just asked, Huh. They rented out to people, apparently for things, and no one's ever thought to have a wedding front. And that is from he gave us some facts. But when I've time for that, that is from Dan and of t D f Illustration dot Com because he's a cool artist. I wanted to plug that from Dan and finally Josh from Jake in Newport Richie, Florida, says, I was an accident of the eighties and I missed him Uppet hey Day.

But I was lucky enough to have three older sisters and parents who had the foresight to ensure that they taped several seasons of the Muppet Show. So Jake is a big fan of the Muppets now and he told us this fact, which I did not know. Since Jim Henson's death, Ralph the Dog has not spoken and is seldom used. And it's my understanding that they do this out of reverence to Mr Henson because Ralph was his favorite Muppet. Oh yeah, yeah, I checked his wiped away

you sweet old. So that's Muppet mail. We got hundreds of pieces of mail and good blow response and thanks for sending them. And it was a good show. Yeah, and we'll try to keep you supplied with more good shows in the future. If you want to send an email and try to make Chuck cry, it's not that hard. You can send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

of iHeart Radios. How stuff Works for more podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.