Originally published in slightly different form on August 10, 2011 at
PsychologyToday.com.
There’s a
cat in my neighborhood who gets taken for a walk every night. He’s a very nice
cat. His owners are nice too. And the cat does pretty well walking on a leash.
But there’s a substantial difference between the way the cat relates to the
people and dogs he meets on his section of the block, and the way most dogs
relate to the people and dogs they meet. There’s also a substantial difference
between the way the cat relates to his owners and the way most dogs relate to
theirs.
I think it
has to do with how much energy and attention is focused on others. The dogs are
always looking to make a connection with people and other dogs, even with the
cat. The cat is more self-possessed. The dogs are on his level, so he pays
close attention, but is a tad wary of them, and perhaps rightly so. He also
shows little or no interest in the people he sees.
I like cats
a lot. But whenever I say hello to the cat, he ignores me. When I say hello to
any of the dogs, most of them wag their tails, some jump up on me, and nearly
every single one seems happy that I’m focused on him or her at that moment. The
cat could care less.
I think the
difference may have to do with predation, triangulation,
and trilateration.
I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.
In global
positioning systems, satellites read the location of an object on earth through
a process called trilateration, which is about reading the differences in
distance between one object and at least two others: triangulation is about
reading the differences in angles.
It seems to
me, that most, if not all predators have an onboard capacity to both
triangulate and trilaterate the angle and distance between themselves, other
salient features of the terrain, and their prey. Group predators—which includes
canids and homo sapiens—have the capacity to include not just the prey and
terrain in their calculations, but other members of their hunting party as
well. It seems to me that this expansion of a predator’s usual frame of
reference is what makes dogs seem so smart in relation to other species (like
cats).
Think of GIs
in a war movie, positioning themselves to take out an enemy’s machine-gun nest.
If radio silence is operative, the soldiers signal one another through hand
gestures, pointing, eye contact, etc. Presumably our ancestors did the same
thing when hunting large prey. To a certain degree, so did your dog’s ancestors
(though, obviously, without the hand gestures).
There are a
number of studies reportedly showing that dogs will respond to human gestures,
and will follow a person’s gaze, and that they’re more capable of doing this
than our closest relatives, chimpanzees. Scientists often mention the fact that
humans and canines are group predators, and that this shared aspect of our
evolutionary history may play a role in a dog’s abilities in this area.
However, chimps are also social predators, the difference is that they don’t
hunt animals that are larger and more dangerous themselves the way humans and
canines do.
Another
thing missing from the discussion is that dogs only look where we point while
in a research setting, when asked to play a game, or when they’re given a
verbal cue by their owners, particularly that involves finding a treat or a
toy. If you randomly point behind a dog, he’ll usually ignore you or start
looking on the ground in front of him. Dogs rarely look where you’re pointing
unless a treat or a toy is involved, or unless they’ve been trained to do so,
as in the “go to place” or “off the couch” command.
However, I
have seen some dogs who—when walking off-leash in a park or at the beach,
etc.—often look at their owner’s eyes as if to determine or anticipate the potential
trajectory of that person’s path.
Many of the
studies on dogs who follow where we point or who follow our gaze suggest that
this indicates that dogs are capable of engaging in what’s called perspective
taking—the ability to know that another being’s sensory inputs are both similar
and different from your own—which is the first level of what’s called a Theory
of Mind.
It has been
said by many in the field that dogs have the same general capacities in this
area as 3—4 year old children. However, newer
studies show that children have this ability—and in a much more
sophisticated way than previously thought—as early as 18 months of age. Their
abilities are also far more sophisticated than those of even the “smartest”
dog. And children come by this gift naturally, on their own, with no coaching.
Going back
to differences between cats and dogs, the question is: are dogs more social
than cats, and therefore more able to relate to human beings in much more
complex ways1 because of their evolutionary history as social
predators? I think the answer is a resounding yes.
A new
study—“Should Social
Savvy Equal Good Spatial Skills? The Interaction of Social Skills With Spatial
Perspective Taking”—suggests that there’s a direct link between sociability
and spatial skills. The more social a person is, the more he or she is aware of
the spatial dynamics in relation to what others can or can’t see from where
they’re located.
Participants
were given a questionnaire to determine their social “IQ.” Then they were asked
to make believe that certain inanimate objects had the ability to see. The objects
used were a mock human figure (a small wooden artist’s model, described as a
“potential agent”), a camera, and a triangular wooden block (described simply
as “objects”). Then the test subjects had to make a determination as to what
those objects would be able to “see” when placed in various positions around
the room.
All of the
participants did better on this spatial reasoning task when taking the
perspective of the potential agent, i.e., the mock human figure. But
“participants with better social skills were more accurate than less social
peers when the target was a potential agent, whereas no such relationship was
observed when the target was an object.”
This,
presumably, has nothing to do with dogs, or how GPS systems operate. But I
think there’s a connection. And I think it also relates back to why the cat in
my neighborhood, who may in fact be much smarter than most of the dogs he sees
every night (I’m sure he thinks he is), has very little interest in them or in
the people he sees (or where his owners are or aren’t looking), while most dogs
show an avid interest in all of these things.
House cats
have no genes for social predation. Dogs do. And while many felines hunt large
prey, they don’t hunt prey that are larger and more dangerous than themselves.
And, again, in order to be successful, social predators have to be able to pay
attention not only to the movements, trajectory, etc., of their prey, but also
to the movements, trajectories, etc. of each individual member of their group.
They also have to be able to read, in a fraction of a second, what another
wolf’s gaze, posture, flick of an ear, etc., might tell them about the prey’s
location and its possible trajectory. And this enables them to automatically
form a wider frame of reference than animals who hunt solo. And that wider
frame of reference is probably what makes domestic dogs so emotionally flexible
and so adaptable.2
It seems to
me that dogs are also able to tune in to our emotional trajectories. Going back
to the platoon of soldiers, the GIs not only have to be able to communicate
through eye contact and hand gestures, they have to be able to tune into each
others’ emotional states as well. The same is true for a pack of wolves.
So I don’t
think what makes dogs special is that they have a rudimentary Theory of Mind,
which would require a “sense of self and other.” It’s that they’re so connected
to us emotionally that they don’t feel themselves to be separate from us at all.
That’s the true genius of dogs.
“Life Is an Adventure—Where Will
Your Dog Take You?”
Footnotes:
1) Guide dogs for the blind, police
dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, etc.
2) Think of all the variations we see
in the sizes and shapes of various dog breeds as opposed to the much smaller
differences in cat breeds.
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