Human-like Social Skills in Dogs?
The modern day domesticated dog has evolved over time to become man’s best friend. It has the ability to follow learned commands and perform tricks, but just how closely related are a dogs social skills to humans and how did it come about? A study done by Brian Hare and Michael Tomasello attempts to answer these questions. They focused their hypothesis on the idea of convergent evolution and a few simple tests.
To test the dog’s abilities at understanding human-like social communicative behavior a piece of food was hidden beneath one of a few cups. Puppies and adult dogs alike were able to consistently and accurately locate the hidden food by following only the cue of a person pointing at the correct cup. The dogs were also able to locate the food when the person nodded or bowed toward the correct cup as well as if the person walked towards the wrong cup but pointed at the correct one. When chimpanzees were given the same tasks they were unable to follow the cues while human children around 14 months of age and dogs/puppies were able to get these tasks correct on their first try. Another line of research focused on the idea that dogs can also understand what humans can see. In this experiment a person would throw a dog a ball then turn their back to the dog. Upon returning the dogs almost always went around to the front of the person when bringing the ball back. Another test involved a dog’s preference to beg when given the choice of two people from the person whose eyes or head were not covered. It is because children and domesticated dogs were able to perform these tasks while other closely related primate species and wolves were not that researchers believe convergent evolution is involved. Convergent evolution is the idea that unrelated organisms separately evolved similar traits to adapt to their environment.
These canine abilities to read human social-communicative behaviors it would seem have evolved over time. It is concluded within the article that this most likely occurred during the canine domestication process over tens of thousands of years. This has been shown in studies involving domesticated foxes that the selection for behaviors against fear and aggression towards human’s produces foxes that perform as well as the dogs did with the social pointing and gazing cues of humans. While the untamed foxes of the study were unable to perform in the same manner. This behavior selection is believed to be the role that resulted in the evolution of human-like social skills in dogs.
Brian Hare and Michael Tomasello
Science Direct Vol. 9, Issue 9, September 2005 Pgs 439-444
The full article can be viewed here.
Posted by Lindsay Goodyear (2)
posted by PWH @ 10:43 PM
21 comments
21 Comments:
I found this very interesting. I never would of thought that human children and domesticated dogs would have an evolutionary relationship, in the sense that both evolved similar "social skills" separately, adapting to their environment. Do you think this has anything to do with the dog being domesticated, and the fact that us humans have influenced the way they behave. In essence we trained them to be like us, by selecting for their good traits and selecting against their bad traits. Did the article, or do you know, how a wild dog would act in this situation of tests with the food under the cup? It seems like they would act like the wolves and primates. It is fascinating how the domesticated foxes were able to perform just as well as the domesticated dogs, even though the foxes have not been domesticated for as long.
Posted by: Katie Cole
Is the domestic fox study you mention the same really famous study where selectivley breeding fox exclusively for tameness and temperment eventually (over generations) led to dog-like foxes who practiced cannablism (specifically, mothers eating their newborn pups)? If it is the same study, that might spell trouble for our domestic dogs. Selectively breeding for only one trait (i.e tameness or human like social skills) inevitably leads to other traits emerging that are tied to that first gene, and those genes aren't always desireable.
-Corinne Delisle (2)
It is interesting to compare a child's understanding of human social behavior to that of a dogs and to see that they are equal. They also compared it to a chimpanzee, which is a very intelligent primate, but the chimpanzee was unable to follow the cues. Do you think that if they tried this same experiment with domesticated chimpanzees it would work? It seems to me that since it is convergent evolution if you put almost any animal in the situation and gave them enough time to evolve that they would be able to complete the tasks as well. What do you think?
-Tara Quist
This is really interesting, it makes you think about how many other animals may have evolved along with humans. Maybe other domesticated animals should be studied like cats and more studies on dogs. I would like to know how much dogs can learn, being compared to children, i wonder if that level is the highest understanding the dog or chimpanzees can attain.
Amanda Joyce
Human like social behavior evolves in dogs because, at least in the beginning, only the friendliest dogs were selected for breeding. Artificial selection not only made dogs look different from wolves, but act differently as well. What do you think caused humans to domesticate dogs?
Jimmy Sullivan
Although I can't dispute that humans and dogs have a unique relationship that is not shared with any other domesticated or wild species (including domesticated cats). I do, however, think that the methods used to test this hypothesis are somewhat flawed. It is well known that dogs have one of the most develpoed senses of smell, which is why they are also used by humans to detect drugs and track down missing persons as well as suspects of various crimes. Therefore, I think that putting meat in a cup is not indicate a dog's ability to understand humans.
Noam Pelleg
we see these behaviors from dogs in everyday life but dont think of them much, but from a scientific view, they are very interesting.it is very interesting to see how dogs have evolved over hundreds of years and been domesticated. so are dogs born having some social skills or is it all learned behavior?
-Hessom Minaei
Even though it has been proven that dogs have a great connection with humans it seems as though some of the tests done in this study are flawed... For example, the test where the dog picks which cup has food in it after the person points to the cup... Maybe the pointing emphasizes where the food is, but this test does not eliminate the dogs incredible sense of smell and thus is not a good experiement. If the dog only had its sight to rely on then maybe this experiment would be less flawed...
By: Brena Sena
I think it is very cool that in the process of domesticating dogs, we unintentionally bred them to be able to have social skills in tune with those of humans. It is very surprising to me that they performed better at these tasks than other, much more genetically similar animals. I am curious as to how other domesticated animals (such as cats) would preform on these tests.
Posted by Alex Jackson
I have heard that animals such as dogs and cats have greatly changed due to domestication. Do the dogs in the research have to be of a certain breed, are there great differences between the brains of certain types of dogs and others that are considered more intelligent? Did most breeds exist in the wild before domestication and if so how did their interactions with people differ, were they more like wolves and lived in packs or did they live more independent lives, these are just some of the questions this article calls up in my mind.
-Alicia Stein
Very interesting article. I knew dogs interacted with humans like no other animal but the experiment they did was very interesting. It is strange that the chip couldn't identify the cup. I wonder if u did they experiment with pet monkey or chimps that were raised by humans if the chimps would do better in the experiment.
Alex Pavidapha
What about wild dogs that have not been domesticated? Would they test similar to undomesticated wolves, domesticated cats, primates, or the dogs to whom they are most closely genetically related? It is remarkable how generations of selective breeding can change species so dramatically.
Jordan Grinstein
I would never have thought that convergent evolution would even be considered in explaining dog behavior, but I can see why it is plausible. What experiments or observational studies were conducted to form this conclusion? Are there any other likely variable that they neglect to mention or vaguely touch upon? Just curious. What do you think if the most likely cause of this behavior? Do you agree or disagree with the findings of this article? Again, just wondering. Thank you for you very interesting article.
Posted by: Amanda Sceusa
Very interesting article. The idea of an evolutionary relationship between species made me wonder if the abilty to communicate could continue to evolve between two dogs for example. Are the social skills of the dog continuing to evolve over time as well?
Ahmed Sandakli
I find it interesting that dogs don't beg from people whose eyes or faces are covered and they bring the ball back to the person so they are facing the person. However I think all animals know which part of an organism is the face by recognizing the location of eyes. That's why some species develop pseudo eyes to trick their predators. Also it's hard to not assume the dog can sniff out the food from the right cup pretty easily. They should have done a study where the person pointed to a cup and if the dog went to the correct cup, the dog would be rewarded with a treat afterwards.
Ashley Maillet
I wonder why this behavior developed in dogs but not in chimps and if there was a way that humans could develop the behavior in chimps.
Charles Scondras
This is a very intereting idea. I would not have geussed that these traits would be shared. I would wonder what other domesticated species would do, if they were bred selectively if similar results could be reproduced. Especially since it didnt seem to take a long evolutionary time.
posted by : Erica Damon
I thought it was interesting that the chimpanzees couldn't read the cues from the humans. I always thought that they had a complex social system. If a chimpanzee can be taught to understand sign language then I would think it would be able to understand a simple gesture such as pointing. Maybe the chimps need to learn what the gestures mean, but the dogs can just figure it out right away. I enjoyed this article and think that dogs have so much personality and can be a lot of fun to observe.
Rachel Carboni
Response: 9-29-08
A few people commented on the fact that there probably was bias in the study because a dogs sense of smell is so evolved.It would would be assumed that the domesticated dogs used in the study would just smell the cups to tell which one had food underneath it. I apologize for not mentioning that the study did not specify what exactly it did to account for this but it did mention that the researchers were aware of this and did take steps to mask the smells. This would make it so the researchers could be sure the dogs were actually using social cues to choose the correct cup.
In response to Katie Cole:
I think that humans domesticating dogs has everything to do with the way dogs behave today. Humans have moved away from what dogs were originally bred to do in terms of hunting and herding jobs but you can see in the way a dog interacts with its owner. In most cases it looks to its owner for direction. The article also did mention how wolves were at completeing the same tasks. Human reared wolves suprisingly did not complete the tasks as well as the dogs did giving more support to the fact that domestication over time is what led to canine human social skills.
In response to Corinne Delisle:
I do not think that this fox study is the same one that you are mentioning. This study was fairly basic and its purpose was to show that by selecting for traits that mediate fear and aggression domesticated foxes started to also take on more domesticated canine traits. These included the prescence of floppier ears, short or curly tails, depigmentation of hair, and even changes in the size and shape of their skulls.
In response to Jimmy Sullivan:
I think that humans domesticated dogs for companionship and to do work. Alot of the pure bred dogs that exist had a "job" at one point in time. Whether these jobs involved hunting, tracking, herding, or manual labor. Look up the history of any dog breed and your sure to find that it had some type of task that it specialized in and was bred for.
In response to Hessom Minaei:
The article mentioned that dogs as young as 9 weeks old were almost perfect in the tests implying that domesticated dogs are born knowing these behaviors as a result of domestication.
In response to Alicia Stein:
The article did not mention what type of dog breeds were used in the study. Different types of dog breeds could be considered more intelligent but I think it's all relative. There are going to be exceptions in any breed that vary from a really smart dog to a really dumb one. Dog breed types have evolved over time because of people breeding and selecting for certain traits. All of the dog breeds that we have today are a product of this stemming from wild dogs in the past.
The above "in response to" comments were posted by Lindsay Goodyear.
I'm not sure I would have said that "dogs can see what humans can see"
Jennifer Smith
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