Dogs out-smart chimps in Harvard exams
A university laboratory dedicated to the study of canine cognition has established that dogs may actually be smarter than chimpanzees – at least when it comes to knowing the difference between one bucket and another.
The experiment involves a dog owner getting his pet to stand between two buckets. The owner then points towards one of the buckets; if the dog moves towards the one indicated it gets rewarded with a doggie snack.
But psychology professor Clive Wynne of the University of Florida’s Canine Cognition and Behavior Lab said that if you tried to repeat the experiment with chimpanzees you’d probably be disappointed by the results.
“They just don’t get it,” Wynne told the New York Post. “The remarkable thing is, the majority of dogs will do this, can follow your direction. You won’t find this with chimpanzees.”
Canine cognition is currently generating a lot of interest in the world of animal psychology with Harvard University recently setting up its own laboratory to investigate just how smart man’s best friend really is.
Mark Hauser, director of the Harvard programme, says the psychological tests are straightforward enough for any dog owner to try them at home if they’re interested in what makes their pet tick.
“Given the close contact that we have with dogs, it’s interesting to look at their ability to understand us,” he said, adding that many dogs received the same medication as humans for conditions such as anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and depression.
Hauser is now investigating whether dogs are able to understand picture representation.
“We want to see their capacity to understand pictorial representations,” Hauser said. “Do they understand that pictures stand for objects? If they see a container with a black circle on it, and the food disappears into that, do they go for a circle or a triangle?”
Other areas of study involve testing whether animals are able to tell the difference between different languages.
“If the family speaks in English to the dog, is French weird to him? Would they care?” Hauser said.
Hauser said dogs typically performed better at finger pointing tasks because they are more dependent on humans than chimpanzees and so pay a great deal of attention to their owners.
“Chimps are awful at this,” Hauser said. “And dogs are typically very, very good at it.”
Hauser said the lab’s work had caught the imagination of local dog owners in Boston and Cambridge and said the experiments also shone light on human psychology by examining how humans and other species related to each other.
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