Dogs have the ability to recognize whether the actions of a person were intentionally or unintentional, researchers from Germany. The article of scientists has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.
During coexistence with a person, the dog was treated to respond to his actions. However, they understand whether the pets that is going to make a person in a particular case, it is unclear. The ability to perceive or realize the existence of the intentions of another is one of the cornerstone concepts of “theory of mind”, a mental state model, which is considered to be peculiar only to a person.
In his experiment, researchers from the University of Göttingen and the Institute of Studying History of the Human Society Max Planck studied how 51 the dog responded to refusal to her in a reward in the form of treats in three scenarios established by scientists. In the first of them, “reluctance” – the experimenter suddenly removed the award through the opening in a transparent barrier and left her next to him. Under the “clumsy” scenario, the award was hampered to the way, but then “by chance” rushed. In the third scenario, the opening was overlapped, despite the attempts of the experimenter, give a reward.
Then scientists measured how much time the pet expected before approaching the award. The researchers expected that if the dogs distinguish the intentions of people, they will wait longer in the first scenario – when the food “was not intended” for them. It turned out that in this case the dogs were not only waited longer, but did not win the tail and often sat or lay – which was interpreted by scientists as an attempt to “draw” the experimenter.