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| Volume 4, Number 3, Article 10, Pages 241-249 |
doi:10.1167/4.3.10 |
http://journalofvision.org/4/3/10/ |
ISSN 1534-7362 |
Brightness discrimination in the dog
Gabriele Pretterer |
Institute for Physiology, Veterinary University Vienna, Vienna, Austria |
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Hermann Bubna-Littitz |
Institute for Physiology, Veterinary University Vienna, Vienna, Austria |
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Gerhard Windischbauer |
Institute for Medical Physics and Biostatistics, Veterinary, University Vienna, Vienna, Austria |
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Cornelia Gabler |
Institute for Medical Physics and Biostatistics, Veterinary, University Vienna, Vienna, Austria |
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Ulrike Griebel |
The University of Memphis, Department of Biology, Memphis, TN, USA |
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Abstract
Almost nothing is known about brightness discrimination in animals and how this ability relates to their lifestyles. As arrhythmic visual generalists, three dogs, a German shepherd and two Belgian shepherds, were tested on their ability to discriminate brightness using a series of 30 shades of grey varying from white to black. The dogs were trained to discriminate between different shades of grey in a simultaneous two-choice situation. Weber’s law can be correlated to their ability to discriminate brightness differences with a calculated Weber fraction of 0.22 for the German shepherd and 0.27 for the Belgian shepherds. Thus brightness discrimination in dogs is about 2 times worse than in humans, a diurnal species.
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