While at a wedding a week or so ago, I had the opportunity to meet Brian Hare, a Professor at Duke University who among other things studies canine cognition at Duke University’s Canine Cognition Center. I had the opportunity to speak with him about his research at Duke and found the results of his studies to be quite fascinating. Brian was recently featured in TIME magazine explaining some of the research that he has been doing. (Read the Article Here.) The research begins to explain and demonstrate some of the rich social intelligence that dogs exhibit.
The article “The Secrets Inside Your Dog’s Mind” explains some of the recent developments of the study of canine cognition. The article describes some of the studies that have been done in the past, as well as studies that are currently being performed to learn more about how dogs think.
I think that the article explains some rather intriguing discoveries that have developed as a result of the current studies that have been going on. For example, Professor Brian Hare of Duke University, has done some research and continues his research into the fact that dogs have developed social skills that allow them to recognize a finger being pointed at an object in order to receive food or a toy. This study utilized something other than what most people would naturally recognize that a dog would utilize in order to obtain food or a toy, for example, their extremely acute sense of smell. The research tends to show that dogs can recognize something as simple as a pointed finger, something that primates could not do without a considerable amount of training.
Recently, I had an opportunity to speak with Brian Hare about his research at the Canine Cognition Center at Duke University. He explained the research and how his curiosity about the researched developed. A dog reacting to a pointed finger is often something that would seem to be natural to many dog owners and those who work with dogs on a regular basis. However, this research shows that there is often more skill and social development that plays a part in this ability. In my opinion, the importance or significance of these “simple tasks” are often negated or overlooked by humans because of the abundance of anthropomorphism that humans rely on to explain their dogs behaviors and intelligence.
I also found the research that was done in Novosibirsk, Russia to be very interesting as well. This research explained how a group of foxes were bred against and control group of foxes. The test group was bred for a number of generations for their sociability towards humans where the control group was allowed to breed, unrestricted. After a number of generations, the foxes became more “dog-like” and approached humans in a very similar as dogs. Hare, was able to also determine that these “dog-like” young foxes were able to pass his finger pointing test as well as dog puppies had been able to before them.
I also found interesting, the research conducted by Alexandra Horowitz of Barnard College in which she studied the reaction of “guilt” where dogs held their heads down and sulked away from their scolding owners after the dogs exhibited poor behavior. This researched showed that the dogs reacted the same way, even when their owners were tricked into thinking that the dog had done something wrong even though it hadn’t. I feel that this research demonstrates how well dogs have been able to interpret human behavior and have the mental capacity to react to this behavior.
I think that this article and more importantly the research that has been done sheds some much needed light on the overall cognition and social “skill set” that dogs have developed over the years. It demonstrates how well these canids have developed alongside humans and vice-versa. It also demonstrates how selective breeding has allowed dogs to more closely interact with humans on a daily basis.
Below is a video demonstrating some of the research that Brian is conducting at the Canine Cognition Center
