Dogs recognize intentions for understanding the hint

The researchers tested eleven dogs in two situations. One day the woman was talking on the screen at the dog with a high voice, how many people use them automatically against pets and babies. In addition, the woman looked at the dog. In the control situation however, the woman said the same dog without eye contact with a deep voice. Always followed this scene, the pointing phase. It advised the woman her eye on one of the identical-looking mug that stood on either side of her.

Meanwhile, the researchers analyzed the eye movements of dogs and recognized so that the animals received at the initial contact of the woman and followed her gaze to the cup. Further experiments should be ruled out that other factors influenced the look of the dog. In fact, the animals followed the gaze of the woman more often if they had previously raised the dogs with a high voice and eye contact. This behavior had the dogs so let it be known that the man wanted in the next moment to communicate with them, is the interpretation of the scientists. The dogs had detected the intention of the woman.

That earlier studies had shown that dogs can communicate amazingly well with people - as opposed to wolves that do this are usually much more obtuse. Indicated about a man with his finger on one of two doses, most dogs understand that it is worthwhile to look only at the container displayed, according to a biscuit. Even a few weeks old puppy to understand that without prior training as a team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology by Julia Riedel has shown. Wolves fail in this task.

The ability to understand cues has probably developed during the domestication, the researchers suspect. Perhaps the person has continued to breed dogs, especially, with whom he could communicate very well. Other studies even suggest that dogs know when objects that lie in sight of the dog, are invisible to humans. This requires a fairly high level of so-called theory of mind, so the ability to put oneself into the mind of another.