If you think it's easy to fool a dog, you're sorely mistaken! Our 4-legged friends don't just trust humans blindly. A study conducted by Akiko Takaoka and his team from the University of Kyoto At Japan indeed suggests that they would be able to assess our reliability. By observing their reaction to misleading indications, the researchers sought to understand to what extent dogs can adjust their trust in a person according to their behavior.
Do dogs automatically follow human gestures?
The question is asked: Do dogs always automatically understand our gestures, or do they learn to judge whether we are trustworthy? To find out, Japanese researchers observed pet dogs in a simple experiment during which they were asked to choose between 2 containers, only one of which hid a treat. The experimenter told them where to look by pointing.
At first, he always pointed to the correct container, and the dogs easily followed his gesture. Then, change of situation: after showing them the contents of the 2 containers, he deliberately pointed to the wrong choice, the one which contained nothing. Finally, in a final phase, he began to indicate the correct container again as at the beginning.
The researchers then compared the dogs' reactions before and after this “false trail” to see if, faced with an unreliable indication, the dogs continued to blindly follow human gestures or if they adjusted their behavior according to the experience.
Dogs are able to adapt their confidence
The results of this study published in Animal Cognition* revealed something quite fascinating about the social intelligence of dogs. At first, most of them naturally followed the experimenter's pointing gesture. But after being “tricked” in phase 2, where the finger deliberately pointed to the wrong container, many dogs were more suspicious and followed the gesture significantly less in phase 3.
To verify that it was not simply a drop in attention or motivation, the researchers did a second experiment with a new experimenter: this time, the dogs began to follow the pointing again. This therefore shows that their behavior really depends on the person in front of them.
The researchers conclude that dogs do not react automatically to human gestures: rather, they seem capable of evaluating the reliability of an individual and adjusting their behavior based on what they have experienced with them. In other words, they learn from their social experiences and adapt their confidence. This study therefore suggests that dogs possess a fairly advanced form of social flexibility, and that they are very attentive to our signals, even outside of a learning context. So, if in the future you try to fool your furball, know that she will certainly not be trapped!
*Takaoka A., et al., “Do dogs follow behavioral cues from an unreliable human? » Animal Cognition, 18, 2015, 475–483.