How did dogs and humans become best friends?

Hunter College Thinking Dog Center, M.A, (2020-2022)

I chose dogs and cats as my species of study in my M.A., so I devised a study to determine their similarities or differences through one behavior - gaze. I found that dogs and cats look at their owners for similar amounts of time, however, cats spent more time away from their owners in our study. Funny! Lockdown brought some unique challenges, but it was a great opportunity to explore remote research. My other coursework included general behavior, animal welfare, a year of statistics, and research methods.

The Boston College Cooperation Lab (2018-2020)

I joined the Cooperation Lab as a Virtue Project lab manager, so I coordinated a cross-cultural project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Our study investigated Virtue development in five countries by harnessing four cornerstone virtues: fairness, trustworthiness, honesty, and forgiveness. We completed tasks with hundreds of children across the globe and are excited to publish our findings this year or next year. In my role, I handled expenses, purchasing, recruitment, site coordination, testing children directly, and travel to foreign countries.

My psychology journey started here: first, as a volunteer in 2014, then as Lab Manager in 2015. Here used dog behavior to learn more about human behavior, specifically ideas like overimitation, domestication, and general cognition (theory of mind, emotion recognition, and consciousness). I ran all aspects of this lab, including student scheduling and onboarding, study running, volunteer management, social media, expenses, regulatory adherence, and of course, petting.

Canine Cognition Center at Yale (2014-2018)

Peer Reviewed Publications

  • Bogese, M. J., Johnston, A. M., & Byosiere, S.-E. (2024). Gaze in cats (Felis catus) and dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 138(1), 68–76. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000359

    • Deutchman, P., Aellen, M., Bogese, M., Bshary, M., Drayton, L., Gil, D., Martin, J., Prétôt, L., Raihani N., Santos, L., McAuliffe, K., (accepted at Animal Behaviour). Punishment is sensitive to outside options in humans but not cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus). Animal Behaviour, 205, 15-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.08.014

    • ·         Project, M., Espinosa, J., Stevens, J. R., Alberghina, D., Barela, J., Bogese, M., … Walsh, C. (2023). ManyDogs 1: A multi-lab replication study of dogs' pointing comprehension. PsyArXiv Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/4kncr

    • Johnston, A. M., Arre, A. M., Bogese, M. J., & Santos, L. R. (2021). How do communicative cues shape the way that dogs (Canis familiaris) encode objects? Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(4), 534–544. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000245

    • McAuliffe, K., Bogese, M., Chang, L. W., Andrews, C. E., Mayer, T., Faranda, A., Hamlin, J. K., & Santos, L. R. (2019). Dogs do not prefer helpers in an infant-based social evaluation task. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 591. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00591

Field Work

  • Paddocks for dingoes in rural Victoria, Australia

    Toolern Vale, Australia (Jan 2017)

    Visited the Dingo Discovery Center to research this close relative of domestic dogs. For three weeks I assisted with sanctuary duties and conducted original research.

  • Street in Antigonish, Nova Scotia

    Antigonish, Canada (Aug 2019)

    My first trip with the BC Virtue project, I and a colleague spent two weeks in Nova Scotia conducting studies with rural Canadian kids at summer camp.

  • Town square in Huancayo, Peru

    Huancayo, Peru (Nov 2019)

    My last trip pre-lockdown was Huancayo, Peru. Here we spent three weeks working with children at a rural school outside the city. It was a great jumpstart to my Spanish!