How “Intelligent” Are Our Dogs… Really?

Imagine watching a Big Headline News story blaring the “shocking” news that scientists have discovered that dogs can tell the difference between red lights and green lights. Whoa, you might think, you guys believed they were red-green color blind? How did you make this earth-shattering discovery, the CNN interviewer innocently asks…

“Vell,” the white-haired egghead in the lab coat begins in his thick Austrian accent, “ve taught zem how to drive, and found zey stopped at all ze red lights while proceeding through all ze green lights!”

It’s the cognitive dissonance that makes a joke like this funny. But wait! There’s more, and no, it’s NOT a joke!

Neurologists and cognitive scientists have what they call the “Mirror Test” that is supposed to measure the self-awareness of animals based on whether or not they can recognize themselves in a mirror. Thus far among ‘lesser’ creatures the great apes, some monkeys, dolphins, elephants, rats and octopi are the only ones confirmed to recognize the image in the mirror as themselves, and humans only manage the feat after they’re 18 months to 2 years old.

Dogs thus far have been ruled failures at self-awareness - despite some disagreement in the scientific community as to whether the test can be properly applied to an animal that relies primarily on senses other than sight. In fact, there is considerable debate ongoing in science as to whether this test means anything at all about self-awareness and/or intelligence for any animal.

I must admit that I’ve always thought the mirror test was highly suspect. For instance, as a family of performers mirrors have always been a big item in our home. There’s a wall full of make-up mirrors with lights, and another wall lined with big mirrors used to perfect moves, flourishes, techniques and puppet manipulation so we can see what we’re doing as others will view it.

Thus it was no surprise to us when our grandson, who was born to mirrors and people who made serious use of them, recognized himself in the mirror very well by the time he learned to crawl - 7 months. As soon as he managed to get himself pulled up to a standing position (9 months - he was precocious) and relied upon Uncle Bob the Poodle to support him as he made his unsteady way from point A to point B, His favorite point B was right in front of the floor-to-ceiling wall of mirrors. He and Bob could be found in front of the mirrors quite a lot of the time.

Bob had no problem knowing who the boy reflected in the mirror was, and I’ve no doubt he knew who the reflected poodle was too - in fact, whenever Bob would come home from the groomer’s with a new haircut, he’d go straight to the mirrored wall to admire himself from all angles he could manage.

Now, maybe scientists just haven’t bothered mirror-testing poodles, who are notoriously finicky about their grooming and impressive good looks. Or maybe they’ve never spent any time with performing dogs (and their people) to know how much performers rely upon mirrors to make sure their performances are well timed and well done. And perhaps child psychologists just don’t deal with baby performers, for whom practicing in front of mirrors is taken entirely for granted from birth and availed just as soon as that baby can get himself to a mirror.

Heck, I once stood in the doorway watching 14-month old grandson seriously practicing his fit-throwing - theatrically throwing himself onto the ground, pounding his fists and feet, etc., the basic body language of the “Terrible Twos” early as usual for him. Finally I laughed and he knew I was there. “You’re never going to be able to pull off a decent fit, you know,” I told him with some humor. “Just not spontaneous enough.”

Not surprisingly, he never did become a famous fit-thrower, skipped that stage entirely, having been caught in the act.

Perhaps (my own opinion), cog-sci guys and psychologists just don’t know enough about self-awareness and self-consciousness to measure it. New research from researchers at the University of Vienna in Austria tends to confirm my strong suspicions that dogs are a whole heck of a lot smarter, self-aware and self-conscious than scientists have wanted to admit to this point. Turns out they can differentiate complex colors and images in photographs and on computer screens - even USE computers! - better than anyone previously imagined.

Dogs Can Classify Complex Photos In Categories Like Humans Do is a really interesting article about this research. From that article…

The authors also draw some conclusions on the strength of their methodology: “Using touch-screen computers with dogs opens up a whole world of possibilities on how to test the cognitive abilities of dogs by basically completely controlling any influence from the owner or experimenter.” They add that the method can also be used to test a range of learning strategies and has the potential to allow researchers to compare the cognitive abilities of different species using a single method.

I’m glad they’ve moved beyond mere mirrors and assumptions, all the way to teaching dogs to use touch screen computers so they can communicate their knowledge to researchers who didn’t think they were smart enough to even know they were dogs. Of course, all any of them ever had to do was ask a dog-lover (particularly any Poodle Person). They’d have gotten an earful on how intelligent they are.

Of course, as the joke at the beginning of this post suggests, perhaps no one should be surprised that researchers are surprised that dogs can recognize pictures of dogs, while NOT being surprised that dogs can be taught to use touch screen computers. Go figure…

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Filed under Dog Intelligence, Poodle Personality, Poodle Quirks, Poodle Skills, Research, Showing Off |