We always thought that our favorite dogs understand everything, just cannot say. It turns out that this is not so. Dogs absolutely do not understand us. Anyway, at this point the results of the experiment of scientists of the University of Western Ontario (Canada).
Wanting to test whether dogs understand the thoughts and intentions of people, researcher William Roberts came up with such an experiment: he put two boxes in the park. They both exuded seductive smells, but only one of the boxes were hot dogs, and the second was empty.
The experiment involved 24 dogs and two men. One of the men was "assistant", he showed the dog in the box of sausages. The second was a "liar" - he showed to the empty box. The “impostors” defiantly ate sausages in front of the dogs that they were disappointed in the people even more.
The result was predictable: the majority of dogs treated confidentially to the instructions of "helpers". In 96 percent of cases the dogs followed the instructions on the correct box. A total of 225 repetitions of the experiment - and probably the same sausage. However, the trust of dogs to "deceivers" decreased immediately, but only at the end of the experiment. It is possible on the basis of this suggests that the animals had no idea about the evil intentions of "cheaters"?
To find out, instead of people, scientists put two boxes. Black instead of good "helpers" and white instead of evil "cheaters". Dogs behave almost as well, associating different boxes of sausages.
As a result, researchers have suggested: dogs do not understand the intentions of people, and learn to communicate only the appearance of "helpers" and "cheaters" with the reward or its absence.
Scientists have long debated whether there is any animal "theory of mind"? Under this concept means the ability to understand the feelings, needs, intentions, expectations and opinions of others, among them the bad intent "cheaters" in the experiment with sausages.
Even in 1978 American researchers announced that they have proved the existence of such qualities in the chimpanzee. But the results of later research were not as straightforward.
About the dogs know that they first try to attract the attention of other dogs, before you start playing with them. Scientists believe that this may be evidence of a primitive "theory of mind".