Canine Cognition

I believe that my dog possesses what psychologists call “theory of mind.” I realize that some people would take exception to that claim for a mere dog, so let me describe why I make such an audacious allegation.

First, what is meant by theory of mind? It is defined by some experts as the capacity for empathy, as well as an understanding of what might be going on in the mind of others. Digging deeper, the result of that understanding is that the other (sticking for now to people) possesses beliefs and perspectives that are different from one's own.

So, for humans, it's the capacity to comprehend that another human is having thoughts that may be dissimilar from mine, yet I still have a good chance of guessing what's going on in their mind and can act accordingly. After several decades of living with my wife, for example, I have come to have a pretty good guess at what she is thinking when she finds my dirty socks on the floor and gets “that look.”

We humans are really quite good at guessing what's going on in the mind of another human, aided greatly by the fact that we use language to inform them about what we are thinking. In addition, we expect that our minds are very similar and operate in similar ways.

But what about my canine friend? She has a very different mind and cannot converse with me in my language. Well, she does in fact have a mammalian brain, which certainly operates far more like mine, than the minds of an insect or a crocodile. Thus, my dog's mind and my mind might be able to guess what’s in each other’s brain, to some limited extent.

Additionally, my dog and I have lived together for a few years—so we've had many occasions to learn, by trial and error, what the other may be thinking; just by observing each other’s behavior. We have unwittingly conducted many experiments that help us to penetrate each other's mind. We've come to make some pretty good guesses about what the other is thinking. Additionally, body language and tone of voice contain lots of supplemental information to verbal language.

So here's something she does that recently made me think that she really possesses some kind of a theory of mind. She is very quiet—she rarely barks or whines. So when she needs to go out to pee, she quietly stands at the door, looking through it, occasionally looking back at us, until we notice and let her out.

When she wants to come back in, however, she seems to comprehend that we can't see her on the opposite side of the door, so she does not simply sit and gaze at the door, waiting for us to notice her. She quietly scratches at the outside of the door, to signal us. Once again, no whining or barking—just her gentle signal which recognizes that although we can't see her, we can hear her gentle, scratchy request. Is she not comprehending that our perspective is different from hers—that we cannot see her and need more information? There is no verbal language to help her communicate with us (she can’t speak out), but she sure uses other effective forms of communication.

Bat Speak

The nature of animal communication has been of interest to humans for ages. We do know that they communicate with each other. We watch them and observe the sounds and gestures they use and wonder how they speak to each other. How much information are they able to exchange, and how complex might it be? We assume that human communication is far more intricate, since we have a much greater cognitive ability and we have developed countless words that we string together in endless ways. But are we really that much more loquacious?

The biggest barrier to understanding animal communication is the fact that we cannot get inside their minds to figure out what's going on. The so-called “theory of mind” that allows one human to guess fairly well what's going on inside the head of another human is helpful, because every human brain works pretty much the same. But how does the mind of an animal operate? What goes on inside the head of beavers or elephants, when they send messages to each other?

In Stephan Budiansky's 1998 book If a Lion Could Talk, he says that we humans simply can't get inside the mind of an animal because (1) they communicate with each other in a wordless manner and (2) our anthropomorphic attitude gets in the way: we can't help but attribute human characteristics to what they're doing. When we do this, we miss who they really are. It causes us to view animals as some sort of defective version of what a human is. We completely miss their special kind of intelligence. So if a lion could talk, we'd totally not understand what it said.

Rene Descartes didn't help cross-species communication, because he believed that animals were more like machines than conscious beings. He thought that they have no feelings or emotions. Descartes paved the way for 20^th century cognitive scientists, who thought that, although animals might be more conscious than a machine, they still insisted in seeing animal consciousness as a lame version of ours.

These limitations we've had regarding animal communication are finally beginning to be cast off. In 1974 the philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote a seminal paper titled “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” he took issue with the then-current view of animal consciousness and claimed that bat communication is quite sophisticated; that in fact bats' echolocation is similar to human vision and contains lots of information. But since consciousness is a very subjective phenomenon, we humans will never be able to experience the world the way a bat does. Nagel maintained that each critter knows only what it's like to be themselves. We will never be able to know what it's like to be a bat—even if we could decipher their language. Even if a bat could talk, we'd not understand what it said.

A recent fascinating forward step in the process of learning how animals communicate was taken by researchers at the Bat Lab for NeuroEcology at Tel Aviv University, who showed that bats not only do a very good job of communicating, but that they jabber among themselves quite a bit. The scientists recorded the vocalizations of Egyptian fruit bats and then analyzed the sounds. What initially sounded like a meaningless cacophony was really an abundance of “bat speak.” They were even able to identify individual bat voices and learn, to a limited extent, what the messages were. They found that bats bicker a lot—they quibble over food, space, where to sleep, and with whom to have sex... just like humans! Bat communication is indeed much more sophisticated that we thought.

So the evidence mounts. Animals do communicate, and if we can drop our anthropomorphic bias, we are beginning to learn how well they do it. Many indigenous peoples have long known that animals are articulate—that they possess sophisticated nonverbal skills. Animals employ subtle ways of sending messages that don't require all the verbiage we humans seem to need. While we fire off long strings of words at each other—often without listening—animals use different but effective ways of getting their messages across. Maybe if we shut up and honed our listening and observational skills, we could learn a thing or two about communication from them.

Our Best Friends

Numerous scientific studies have unequivocally shown that dogs—considered by many people to be “man's best friend”—descended from the wolves. This result comes from DNA studies of wolves and dogs. The estimated date of when dogs became our buddies is as yet a little hazy: anywhere from about 13 thousand years ago to as long ago as 30 thousand years. The relationship between wolves and dogs is also demonstrated in their scientific names: Canis lupus (for wolves) and Canis lupus familairis (for dogs). We certainly are more familiar with dogs.

A tougher question about the evolution of wolves to dogs is: How did the first dogs transform from wolves? By what process did those pioneer wolves come in from the wild and buddy-up to our ancestors? The answer to questions like these cannot be investigated by DNA experiments in the laboratory, nor are there any historical documents waiting to be discovered (since no human was able to write at the time). Nonetheless, recent research is offering some insights to understand how dogs evolved from wolves.

A common belief for many years has been that dogs evolved when an enterprising hunter-gatherer encountered some cute wolf puppies and carried a couple of them home to the cave to adopt. In time the little wolves became tame and the rest of the story is history. That tale has been debunked. The lifestyle of our hunter-gatherer ancestors was too nomadic to allow them to carry out such a lengthy process. In addition, modern studies of wolves have shown that, although wolves can be socialized and even tamed, they retain a large degree of wildness, that keeps them from connecting with people as deeply as dogs do. Finally, what sane hunger-gatherer parent would allow a wild wolf to get cozy with their kids?

Research has shown instead that humans did not domesticate wolves... wolves did it themselves. Dogs are thus self-domesticated wolves. They chose us. Why? How? Very recent studies have shown that dogs are a rare type of critter who possess a kind of intelligence that allows them to interpret our intentions. They read our behavior and body language and perceive what we literally are thinking. In humans this ability is called “theory of mind.” Here's how it works: I know that I have a mind, I assume that other people do, and further, I assume that how I respond to things is similar to how other people do.

Dogs do not have this level of cognitive ability, but they do have a remarkable ability to read our intentions. It is a capability that allowed them to domesticate themselves and learn to live with us, long ago. They were clever enough to perceive that life would be much easier if they became our buddies. We would be their source of food (our leftover garbage) and rather than compete with us in hunting down animals (as have their wolf cousins), they could partner with us and benefit from our skills (and vice versa).

As an example, the dog is unique among animals in understanding that when we point at something, we are drawing their attention to it. Wolves can't do it. Even our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, can't do it. This ability allows dogs to make inferences about our intentions and to flexibly and creatively solve new problems for themselves—things that neither wolves nor apes can do.

So we humans have more in common with dogs than we've previously thought. When we evolved from apes into Homo sapiens, we later developed the theory of mind, which has allowed us to develop a unique form of communication and to cooperate to achieve impressive things. When dogs evolved from wolves (on their own initiative) they developed a similar ability, that gives us and them a unique form of communication and cooperation. Does that not make them our best friends?