Your dog may be a good guy, but it’s not as smart as you think, a new research article suggests. Dogs have a unique set of cognitive abilities, but they are not inherently smarter than other animals, says the new document, published on the Learning & Behavior journal. “The dogs are special, but are not exceptional,” says co-author Britta Osthaus, a professor of psychology at the Christ Church University in the UK. It was “You’re smart, but not smart stand-out.” The research of the lead author Stephen Lea previous role as director of the journal Animal Cognition inspired, says Osthaus. Lea, now a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Exeter in the UK, sees many documents about the special abilities of the dogs, but noted that other animals have rarely been tested with the same kind of cognitive tasks. Working with Osthaus, Lea decided to put the record straight from the analysis of more than 300 existing studies in animal cognition, in an attempt to compare dogs to other equivalent ways. The dogs are placed into three main classes, the newspaper said. You carnivorans, an order of carnivorous animals more than anything else; They are social hunters, that is, they work together to find food and to recover; and they domesticated by humans. For their new paper, Osthaus and Lea comparing the species for dogs in each of these three categories, such as wolves (close ancestors), wild dogs and hyenas (carnivorans and social fighters), cats (carnivorans and pets), dolphins and chimpanzees (social Hunter) and horses and pigeons (pets). In many cognitive categories-the possibilities information and sensory stimuli to solving problems of social intelligence researchers that other animals or exceed the ability of dogs could be drawn. “They are the only species in the middle of these three categories, it is something very special,” says Osthaus. Due to their overlapping classifications canines are uniquely suited to serve as certain tasks, such as guides for the blind or the police assistants. But in each of these three categories: “You will find other animals and other species, such as dogs, or maybe even better.” And many animals can be considered special attention when examined through the lens of their specific properties, adds, The popular opinion is that dogs are extremely intelligent likely to persist for a few reasons, says Osthaus. The dogs are easy to study, for one thing, making it easy for more information about their cognitive abilities than the other types. And because people have a particularly close relationship with dogs, there is probably a confirmation bias element in the scientific literature. “We would be very wise and we love our dogs are appreciated,” says Osthaus. But the treatment of dogs as superlatively intelligent species that can actually do a disservice, says. “We must remember that dogs are dogs. We just need to dogs, to know what their limits are, so we do not expect too much.” Research also shows that other animals can gain more credence when given. “If we know a lot about the knowledge of pigs or goats, so we need to see in their well-being and how we keep,” says Osthaus. “If they need social interaction and mental stimulation, we have to offer.”
Your dog is probably dumber than you think, says a new study
