Our ability to “catch” the emotions of others is called emotional contagion. Hare: Even as young children, we laugh when we see someone laughing, and we cry when we someone in distress. It’s an incredibly exciting project and I can’t wait to see what we find out! With Dognition and people’s help, we have the potential to test hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dogs. The largest single dog study published tested around 15,000 dogs. Everyone who signs into Dognition will not only get an extensive cognitive profile of their own dog, but the data will be entered into a huge database that scientists can use to answer all these burning questions that we’ve never had the resources to answer, like breed differences. On top of that, the data that you enter will contribute to a huge citizen science project that will help us help all dogs, from shelter dogs, to service dogs. Does your dog rely on you to solve problems, or are they more independent? Do they pay attention to where you are looking before they decide to sneak food off the coffee table, or are they unaware when you are watching - making it hard for them to be sneaky?ĭognition is all about playing fun games that will give you a window into your dog’s mind, and that will in turn enrich the relationship you have with your dog. As I said, different dogs use different strategies to solve problems. The only way to find their genius is to compare them to other dogs who all play the same cognitive games. Hare: Dognition is about helping people find the genius in their dog. Their ability to interpret our gestures also helps them solves problems they can’t solve on their own.Ĭook: I see you have created a new website, Dognition.
It allows them to be incredible social partners with us, whether it’s hunting, or agility, or just navigating every day life. We take it for granted that dogs can effortlessly use our pointing gestures to find a hidden toy or morsel of food, but no other species can spontaneously read our communicative gestures as flexibly as dogs can. In the case of dogs it happens to be their ability to read our communicative gestures. Other animals have their own unique genius that was shaped by nature. Or put more simply, how they can interpret our gestures to understand us or get what they want.Ĭook: But other animals are intelligent, right? What makes dogs unique? However, most of my research with dogs has been about the cooperative way they use human communicative gestures. In particular, I’ve been interested in how dogs recruit help and how they take someone else’s visual perspective. Hare: We know that as a species, dogs are remarkable in certain areas, like taking someone else’s visual perspective, or learning from someone else’s actions. Rest assured – she is a genius.Ĭook: What are the “different things” that dogs are good at? What are the areas of dog intelligence you have studied? The pug drooling on your shoe may not look like the brightest bulb in the box, but she comes from a long line of successful dogs and is a member of the most successful mammal species on the planet besides us. This means people can often underestimate the intelligence of their best friend. Unfortunately, the very clever strategies some dogs are using are not apparent without playing a cognitive game. Different dogs are good at different things. In reality there are different types of intelligence. There’s still this throwback to a uni-dimensional version of intelligence, as though there is only one type of intelligence that you either have more or less of. Hare: That there are “smart” dogs and “dumb” dogs. Hare answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook.Ĭook: What is the biggest misconception people have about the dog mind?
The founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center, Hare has now written a book, “ The Genius of Dogs,” with his wife, the journalist Vanessa Woods. Brian Hare, an associate professor in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, is one of the leading figures in the quest to understand what dogs know. For a long time, scientists did not take their pronouncements particularly seriously, but new research suggests that canines are indeed quite bright, and in some ways unique. Just about every dog owner is convinced their dog is a genius.
0 kommentar(er)
