Mind Reader in Your Home

by Malcolm Riordan

Among sentient friends, most of us would include our dogs. What dog owner hasn't experienced their dog reading their mind, emotions, beliefs, or intentions? In fact, dogs are scientifically acknowledged as experts in reading us!

In behavioral and cognitive studies, the ability of domestic dogs to respond to human social cues has been extensively documented.

Research shows domestic dogs have evolved these hard-wired abilities since the time they began their association with man – estimated as roughly 15 thousand years ago.

Studies in genetics, neurology and behavior repeatedly demonstrate that our dogs have evolved sophisticated skills of social cognition.

Did you know that our human faces are asymmetrical? In our facial expressions, the right side of the human face expresses emotions more accurately. And not only more honestly, but also more intensely.  As humans, we instinctively know this. All humans demonstrate a subconscious tendency to gaze first—and for a longer period—at the right side of other people's faces.  This is believed to have evolved in association with our own human adaptive cognitive processes.

And guess what? Dogs have also evolved to instinctively do exactly the same!  Films of dogs' eye and head movement demonstrate that they too automatically scan the right side of a human face first and for longer periods.  They have evolved and fine-tuned an ability to access at a glance what our emotion of the moment is.

Dr.  Stanley Coren, a psychology professor and neuropsychological researcher at the University of British Columbia, has also argued that dogs demonstrate the relative sophistication of having "theory of mind."

Theory of mind here means that dogs have "the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.— to oneself and to others; to understand that others have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are different from one's own."  Want a little proof?  Watch awhile, you'll see many dogs that practice the art of deception!

Another indicator of just how skillful dogs are at reading our minds is in a very revealing 2011 study.  

Research at UC Davis, published in the journal Animal Cognition, found that in rooms where no scent of drugs or explosives was present, certified search dogs erroneously alerted or identified a scent at 225 locations during the study's 144 room searches—searches where their professional handlers had been strongly misled into believing there were drugs or explosives in the room. (Again, there were not any drugs or explosives nor any scent of them present in any of the test rooms.)

The study easily confirmed that the dog-handler's beliefs affected the outcomes of scent detection searches by dog/human teams. The researchers recruited 18 handler-detection dog teams from various law-enforcement agencies. Each team was certified by an agency for either drug detection, explosives detection, or both. 

"Dogs are exceptionally keen at interpreting subtle cues," said Anita Oberbauer, head of UC Davis Department of Animal Science and the study's senior author. A lead researcher, Lisa Lit, neurologist, said, "It isn't just about how sensitive a dog's nose is or how well-trained a dog is. There are cognitive factors affecting the interaction between a dog and a handler that can impact the dog's performance. These might be as important – or even more important – than the sensitivity of a dog's nose."

Beyond their conclusions, these scientists subjectively speculated on just what cues the dogs could have been reading from their handlers—handlers that strongly believed drugs and explosives were present. The handlers were carrying an expectation that their dog would alert. (As any cat would tell you, dogs are slavishly devoted to pleasing their humans.)

Clearly the dogs responded to scent, but also to additional cues unknowingly given by handlers. These cues may include minute facial and postural changes. Detection dogs read these subtle human cues, cues that then affected their search performance. Perhaps these cues include nodding, head turning, gazing, or differences in handler proximity to the dog – i.e. subtle and unintentional herding of the dog by its handler.

Not only do our sentient canine friends have superior senses of smell and hearing, they also are accomplished mind readers!

All photos are owner submitted to Funny Dog Site or were taken by the author.

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Woods Rafter Cat Image on Banner by Malcolm Riordan.