Welcome to the virtual home of the Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab! Our bricks-and-mortar home is Barnard College in New York City. There, we study the behavior and mind of the NYC dog (and any other dogs who want to stop by).
Our primary interest is understanding, scientifically, the dog's experience: what it is like to be a dog. Our studies aim to get a handle on what dogs perceive and know by presenting them with puzzles, novel objects, and short games at the lab with their owners.
 
Our work has been written about in The New Yorker, The New York Times (and here), The Atlantic; and discussed on NPR and in Scientific American, among others. (For our journal publications, follow this link). 

Lately, we've studied the following topics:
  • The effect of nosework games on a dog's personality
  • Self-recognition through smell 
  • Dog-human and dog-dog play 
  • Olfactory discrimination abilities 
  • Various anthropomorphisms, including:
    • the dog's understanding of "fairness"
    • the "guilty look" of dogs       
Interested in volunteering in the lab? College and post-bacc students in NYC please email us in early September
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Interested in participating in our next study?​ Learn more below!
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April, 2021:

The Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab honors our friend and supporter, Dr. April Benson, Barnard class of 1973. Dr. Benson's work as a entrepreneur and psychologist specializing in treating compulsive buying disorders was an inspiration. Her generous funding of the Lab continues to support our research and programs; her enthusiasm and ideas fuel our approach to the study of behavior. Dr. Benson was a role model to our researchers and a champion of women in STEM. She is dearly missed.
 
Photo Credit: StockSnap
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