Dogs are smarter than apes

When it comes to problem-solving with communication, humans and apes are at the top of the list. Canines, however, have surpassed the apes, according to the study “Individual differences in cooperative communicative skills are more similar between dogs and humans than chimpanzees”. This study details the cooperation of chimpanzees as compared to human children, compared to working and pet dogs. Since there were working dogs and pet dogs, there was a wide array of socialization, obedience, and closeness to humans, and the chimpanzees tested were housed in a facility with close relationships with the human workers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the communication strategies of canines, and how effective it is when compared to humans and non-human apes. This included a variety of tests in which the dog is required to make decisions for themselves or look to the human present for more information. One of the tests, the “impossible task”, is one used often for potential service dog candidates, and is used in order to see how quickly each dog will look to the human for help, when realizing they cannot complete the task themself. The results of this study challenged previous assumptions of humans being entirely unique in how early we are able to effectively communicate. The proposition of why this has happened with humans relates to our social nature and cultural intelligence — the “cultural intelligence hypothesis” states that:

“…while adult human minds may differ from those of other animals in many respects, these differences arise largely because of early emerging social cognitive skills for sharing, and following and directing the attention of others, which support the cultural acquisition of knowledge across cognitive domains.” (MacLean, Hermann, et al., 41)

The three categories of tests used in this study are: solving physical problems, spatial reasoning, and social cognition. I have already spoiled the results of this study, as the dogs are far more advanced in these skills than apes when compared to human cognition; that being said, the reasons for the results turning out this way are far more interesting than the results themselves. Since the dogs tested were so similar to humans in solving physical problems, spatial reasoning, and social cognition, the authors have proposed that this may be due to something like convergent evolution, in that two species evolve very similar characteristics completely independently. This, along with the fact that dogs are considered the most ancient domesticated animal, has some very complex implications on the effect we have had on dogs, and the effect dogs have had on us.

Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the study show some truly striking similarities between the test results of human infants and dogs. The human infants and dogs both showed social cognition in the areas of reaching, gaze, pointing, and communicative markers, while the physical cognition is identical in spatial memory, shape, transposition, and noise. The dendrograms of these (Fig. 2) have very similar branches, meaning the clusters consisting of only social cognitive tasks are identical. The apes, meanwhile, share very few similarities. On the bootstrapped hierarchical clustering analysis, the difference between the dogs and human infants is negligible, and the tasks involving gaze, pointing, and reach are all scored very high, while the apes scored quite low.

One of the assumptions of the meaning of these results is that because humans and wolves evolved side-by-side, we share many similarities in social behavior. However, it is also proposed that because wolves are pack animals, and rely on clear communication in order to hunt successfully, that dogs have acquired high social cognition from their wolf ancestors. Personally, I am not sure I agree with the second hypothesis, as many modern breeds of dogs have many traits that differ greatly from wolves, and they are not pack animals. That being said, the results certainly show some striking similarities between the way we think and solve problems and the way dogs think.

If I were completing a study like this, I would ideally like to include wolves, coyotes, or other wild canids in their own category beside domestic dogs. Despite the sample population of the dogs being quite large and diverse, the working dogs only included retriever breeds, and the population of pet dogs were from a local populous in Durham, North Carolina, which makes it likely that the majority of the pet dogs were hound or pitbull mixes. If breed type were more varied, with an inclusion of highly independent breeds or primitive dogs, I would predict their results to be closer to that of the wolves. I would also wish to include other species of great apes besides chimpanzees and bonobos. The authors mentioned wanting to include orangutans in the study, as their character is far more compliant and docile than chimpanzees, and may throw the results.

The background of each animal, also, makes a difference. The author mentioned there being a high percentage of poorly socialized dogs participating, which only goes to show how socially skilled dogs are even without proper socialization — and may have wrongly skewed some of the tests. Hopefully, those who come across this study will think the former. The apes used in the study were, as previously mentioned, living closely with humans in sanctuaries, having mostly come to the sanctuary after being born in the wild and rescued from poachers at a young age. This may have also had a great effect on the results.

For the scientific community, those interested in biology, neurology, cognition, and behavior, this is a fascinating look into what may be evidence for why and how these skills develop. For primate researchers, this opens another door of why apes have evolved the way they have, and what implications this has on human beings. There are many, many interesting details within this study, including some of the tests themselves — one of which included playing an audio clip of the dogs’ owners yawning to observe how many dogs yawned “contagiously”, which refers to an older study — but not all of them can be discussed here. The sample size of each group was very large, with each one having over one hundred participants, and were sourced from different areas, which certainly helped diversify the test results. However, using wild canids would likely have added something else to the theory that wolves, too, have highly advanced social cognition. Despite all this, the meticulous nature of each test given provides an interesting insight into the way animals think, and how we may think like animals.