Social Cognition in Dogs, or How did Fido get so smart? « The Thoughtful Animal
Posted by Mike on March 4, 2010 under 1. Info Collection | 
Be the First to Comment
Social Cognition in Dogs, or How did Fido get so smart? « The Thoughtful Animal: “The Thoughtful Animal
exploring thought and cognition in the non-human animal (and sometimes the human animal, too!)
AboutRecognitionMy Posts on LAist
Posted by: Jason | February 25, 2010
Social Cognition in Dogs, or How did Fido get so smart?
Figure 1: Dogs are pretty intelligent.
Domesticated dogs seem to have an uncanny ability to understand human communicative gestures. If you point to something the dog zeroes in on the object or location you’re pointing to (whether it’s a toy, or food, or to get his in-need-of-a-bath butt off your damn bed and back onto his damn bed). Put another way, if your attention is on something, or if your attention is directed to somewhere, dogs seem to be able to turn their attention onto that thing or location as well.
Figure 2: My friend (and Presentation blogger) Les Posen and his dog Shrek, who is attending to the same newspaper as his owner.
Amazingly, dogs seem to be better at this than primates (including our nearest cousins, the chimpanzee”
