Brian Hare is the evolutionary anthropologist who made his bones with the “pointing test” — proving that dogs, like human babies but unlike wolves or chimpanzees, can follow a pointing hand (or even a directed gaze) to get a reward. Now he’s got a new project:
… Dr. Hare, now an associate professor at Duke, has continued to probe the canine mind, but his research has been constrained by the number of dogs he can study. Now he hopes to expand his research geometrically — with the help of dog owners around the world. He is the chief scientific officer of a new company called Dognition, which produces a Web site where people can test their dog’s cognition, learn about their pets and, Dr. Hare hopes, supply him and his colleagues with scientific data on tens of thousands of dogs…
From his previous research, Dr. Hare has argued that dogs evolved their extraordinary social intelligence once their ancestors began lingering around early human settlements. As he and his wife, Vanessa Woods, explain in their new book, “The Genius of Dogs,” natural selection favored the dogs that did a better job of figuring out the intentions of humans.
While this evolution gave dogs one cognitive gift, it didn’t make them more intelligent in general. “If you compare them to wolves as individuals, they look like idiots,” Dr. Hare said. “But if you then show them having a human solve the problem, they’re geniuses.”
To explore dog cognition further, he set up the Duke Canine Cognition Center in 2009. He and his colleagues built a network of 1,000 dog owners willing to bring in their pets for tests….
Dr. Hare says his main goal is to build a database that will shed light on longstanding questions about behavior, breeding and genetics — for example, whether the cognitive styles of various breeds can be linked to their genes. (Dr. Miklosi cautions, however, that the data that comes from people playing games with their dogs in their living room won’t be as carefully controlled as the experiments scientists run in their labs.)
One hypothesis has already emerged from Dognition’s users, Dr. Hare said. A surprising link turned up between empathy in dogs and deception. The dogs that are most bonded to their owners turn out to be most likely to observe their owner in order to steal food. “I would not have thought to test for that relationship at Duke, but with Dognition we can see it,” said Dr. Hare.
What with the Dubya Bush Manure Locker dedication and #Nerdprom (WHCD), there have been a lot of extremely obvious statements put into print this week, but anyone who’s ever lived with a dog will agree that the highlighted sentence is the single Most Obvious winner.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
And cats don’t give a shit. :)
Yutsano
The stealing food is not true of all dogs. Neither jack nor Jill will steal food but they will gladly accept any human food treat offered. Maybe it’s just a border collie thing.
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Speaking of which, how is Lady Smudge?
MattF
Humans are saps, dogs have evolved from wolves into con artists. Obvious, once you see it.
Mart
Not a dog owner – but if they could figure out why some dogs drive me nuts, and others seem so cool – I could see being one. My non-Dognition theory is owners with dogs that get food thrown at them during dinner usually are the dogs I do not care much for. Table scrap dogs, with that feed me I am really starving look in there eyes; seem to be overly demanding for human attention nearly all the time.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
WTF happened to my comment?
yuts, LS is doing fine. queen of the apartment, but somewhat perturbed by her young visitor, who is still teen kitty.
Tokyokie
Some researcher needs to do similar research on cats, then maybe somebody will be able to determine why Marvin, my lilac-point Siamese, insists on running through doors that will close behind him, leaving him to cry to be let out 5 minutes later.
WereBear
There was a big fuss last year, about how cats “manipulate” humans to get what they want, the horror.
Gee, dogs drop balls on people’s feet all the time, they don’t get breathless headlines about manipulating people.
Chris
@WereBear:
… LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS!
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@WereBear: That’s because dogs haven’t developed their rep. :)
Ben Franklin
Dogs have the innate ability to live in the present. They are totally dependent on the pack leader, and are loyal to the pack in the extremus. This is prescient thinking on the part of canines, since the only true reality is that of the current moment. If people could be as smart as dogs, this Planet would exceed expectations we coerce from it.
Big R
He made his bones.
I saw what you did there.
JPL
pshaw… When my dog gets a treat, she makes me put it her mouth. There is no way she wants something that has been on the floor.. ick.. She loves me because I put up with her idiosyncrasies and she puts up with mine. We respect each other.
MonkeyBoy
“pointing test”
Dogs will often trust you about pointing. Say a dog likes to chase animals such as mice/cats/squirrels etc.
After an initial chase where the animal hides, you can start pointing to places where you assure the dog the animal has moved to and the dog will tear around checking them out.
I’ve never carried this game out long enough to tell if a dog will stop believing you.
JPL
OT.. My son called and asked me to watch “Runaway Slave” on Netflix. The purpose being to rate it and see if I could last longer than he did. Yes, I rated it but no I could not last longer than he did. Glenn Beck does know how to film a propagandist piece of crap though… I need a shower and I didn’t watch beyond five minutes.
p.a.
Off topic, but the open thread is winding down. A must-read from TBP:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/04/missing-the-bigger-picture-in-the-reinhart-rogoff-debate/
Amir Khalid
As a schoolkid, I was exposed to careers aptitude testing for humans. It turns out not to work all that well at predicting what we do in life. So I’m doubtful that it will work for dogs.
As for using trickery to get at food, one shouldn’t be surprised by this. It’s part and parcel of hunting, after all, and aren’t our cats and dogs descended from hunters?
Funkula
Don’t know about the pointing, but dogs will definitely stop believing that you’ve thrown the ball when you fake them out enough.
jeffreyw
Sly Ol’ Dawg
MonkeyBoy
@Ben Franklin: “Dogs have the innate ability to live in the present. … the only true reality is that of the current moment. If people could be as smart as dogs, this Planet would exceed expectations we coerce from it.”
Ummm, dogs bury bones (cache food for future consumption) and at least wolves will defend cache sites.
That sure sounds like thinking about the future unless you want to claim they are acting entirely on instinct and have no idea where a tasty snack is buried.
JPL
@p.a.: The problem that he doesn’t address is the difference between the two parties. Mitt’s solution was to cut taxes on the wealthy and do away with entitlements. Those lucky duckies that don’t pay income taxes should suffer. I don’t think the President is perfect but he rises head and shoulders above the alternatives.
raven
“Dogs Decoded” reveals the science behind the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs and investigates new discoveries in genetics that are illuminating the origin of dogs—with surprising implications for the evolution of human culture.
JPL
@jeffreyw: How’s Katie?
jl
@JPL:
” There is no way she wants something that has been on the floor. ”
Your dog doesn’t have a five second rule?
Actually, most dogs I’be around, a five second rule would be irrelevant, since any food that hit the floor would be ancient history by that time.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@MonkeyBoy: Ben Franklin is an idiot of the first order. You’d do better to ignore his bleatings.
jeffreyw
@JPL: Katie is fine, we got her to take her heartworm meds yesterday. The biggest worry we have right now is that she has never been spayed and will be coming into heat sooner that we would like.
Yutsano
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Now now. Just because he’s convinced only he knows DA TROOF!! about everything doesn’t necessarily make him an idiot. A dishonest debater and condescending asshole yes.
JWL
This fraud reminds me of an episode of the old TV show, The Odd Couple. A guilty Oscar has paid for a funeral service for Felix’s dead parrot, which miraculously returns to life (having merely been in a coma). When he demands his money back, the funereal director explains that to be impossible, but isn’t it wonderful news about the parrot? At which point Jack Klugman (Oscar) swats a fly, and insists the service continue for the dearly departed. The director complies, pausing only to request the fly’s name. “Saul”, replies Klugman.
merl
I have to give my dog two treats at a time. One to eat and one to hide, I have no idea what becomes of the hidden treats
Morzer
@MonkeyBoy:
The question now is whether “Ben Franklin” is smart enough to follow the pointer you’ve just deployed for him.
Poopyman
Ok, OT I know, but this my first time posting from my phone (aka the mobile version). I know I don’t get numbered comments, but do I have to scroll to the top to refresh?
raven
For one night only, the Rolling Stones were an up-and-coming band again.The band kicked off Saturday’s hush-hush 90-minute concert at the Echoplex in the hip Echo Park neighborhood with “You Got Me Rocking” before catapulting into a mix of new and old material, as well as their bluesy covers of classics from Otis Redding (“That’s How Strong My Love Is”), Chuck Berry (“Little Queenie”) and The Temptations (“Just My Imagination”).
Violet
OT–Can anyone tell me what the worms are that I found in the bird bath? They look like parasite worms. Very thin, maybe an inch long, white-ish. None were moving, so maybe all are dead? Had torrential rain for hours yesterday and the birds have had plenty of puddles to play in and drink from today, so the bird bath hasn’t been particularly busy. Doubt they were there yesterday before the storm, but maybe? No idea what they are.
quannlace
I’m laughing like crazy. My current dog in residence, Katie, has always been very laissez-faire about food. Her full dog bowl can sit there all day long, till she finally decides, “Okay, I’ll give it a tumble.’ This weekend I’m taking care of my sister’s dog, a Belgian shepard, and she epitomizes every thing this article states. Between inhaling her allotment of kibble, she’s on the constant lookout for food. I keep saying to her, ‘You are not going to starve. I promise you!”
I also introduced her to Beggin’ Strips, which seems to be, for her, doggie heroin.
JPL
@jl: Since Miss Moxie is a rescue, my thought is she was taught in a forceful way not to take food off the floor. Maybe the adults knew about the five second rule and they wanted it. Who knows.
kerFuFFler
So is this video about a dog with perfect pitch a hoax? He seems to enjoy they game but of course also appreciates the treats…
It seems like an expensive keyboard to have built for a dog—-reminds me of the foot pedals some organs have.
kerFuFFler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y82sYIDxDoc
whoops, senior moment….
dmbeaster
Dogs are libertarians?
Haydnseek
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Pointing out that he’s an idiot is much to kind. We actually coerce expectations from the planet? LOL!
Mnemosyne
Any discussion of dog intelligence must include this classic post from Hyperbole and a Half about her dog who’s too dumb to figure out stairs.
The Sailor
@WereBear:
Except cats can infect people (and other animals) with a parasite that affects behavior. That’s downright ebil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Psychiatric_disorders
Lurking Canadian
My dog will literally steal the eggs off my son’s plate and the toast from his hand. I had been assuming that is because he is nearly feral and badly trained. I would much rather claim it is because he is so closely bonded.
JWL
@Lurking Canadian: Well, Lurking C., for ONLY $19.99*, you can scratch that itch and stop guessing. Send Dog Dude the cash, and rest easy. He’s the Freud of pooches, and you better believe it.
* A psychic reading for your favorite canine included!
dance around in your bones
@Mnemosyne: I love Allie Brosh & Hyperbole and a Half.
I know she was getting a book published, but has she really not written a post since the depression one from 2011?
Ah, just checked Amazon, looks like her book isn’t coming out until October of this year. I guess she’s been busy!
fuckwit
Personal pet peeve: dogs did not start bonding with humans by “hanging around human settlements”. Dogs started bonding with humans LONG BEFORE THERE WERE ANYTHING LIKE HUMAN SETTLEMENTS!
Dogs and humans started bonding back in the nomadic, hunter-gatherer days– at least 100k-200k years ago, probably many more. Tribes of social primates bonding with packs of social canines, travelling together, and then eventually hunting together, and the rest is history. That’s one reason perhaps why their social skills are so very strong: it’s been a long, long time of co-evolution.
Cats, however, have only been domesticated since human settlements, only about 10k years ago. Once we started keeping storehouses of grain, we needed ways to kill the damned mice. No wonder the Egyptians worshipped the kitties.
Ramalama
First I just wanted to call out Bravo on this post.
Then reading everyone’s comments I of course stopped thinking about journalists and politicians and thought back to my own dog. He was found in the hinterlands of nowheresville in Quebec after living on his own with his two sisters for (SPCA thinks) about a month, starving, stinking, wild. They were about 4 months old then. Mostly Malamute with one blue husky eye, he also had wolf like tendencies like rolling his eyes if he were bored. When we took him with us to the big bad city we met all kinds of people at the dog parks who told us of how it was all the rage in Canada, or at least in Quebec, for people to mate their sled dogs with wolves in the 1940s I think. And everyone thought he was definitely part wolf.
So in keeping with the aforementioned study, my dog used the dog part of him to focus on food of course, but used his wolf part to feign indifference. He never stole anything off of any counter or plate or table – and he was tall enough to be able to rest his chin on our dining room table. No, what he figured out was delayed gratification was the best course. Had us figured out long before we realized it.
Hillary Rettig
Whatevs…the combination of giving (unconditional love) and taking (food, love, time), not to mention (in many dogs) an almost miraculous capacity for kindness and forgiveness, makes dogs a miracle, and one of the wonders and beauties of existence. People don’t have bumper stickers on their car saying “Who Rescued Whom?” for nothing.
JCR
My dog is fairly smart–not a genius, but picks up on things very quickly–but he doesn’t seem to get the pointing finger thing. I wonder why some dogs get it, and some don’t. It can’t be based on how people oriented they are, b/c my dog loves people and is very in-tune and sensitive to all other cues. Just not the pointing finger. I wonder if I can teach him… any suggestions how?
Muryx
I find it fascinating that chimpanzees CAN’T follow a pointing finger. That seems completely counterintuitive….
From personal experience, I can also report that most raccoons also understand and follow pointing fingers after one or at the most two demonstrations. (I wonder how they’d do with sign language?)
lojasmo
My dog is also retarded. She would starve to death if we didn’t put peanut butter on her food.