In movies, dogs seem to have the ability to sense that something is wrong , and reveal the true nature of the antagonists, and moviegoers trust this “danger detector”, but do you think dogs can do this in the movie too? real life?
Dogs can spot fake or unreliable people, study finds
Although dogs may seem silly chasing their own tails, they are intelligent creatures with a high social conscience. Studies have found that dogs can sense human emotions and differentiate between expressions of happiness and anger .
And they also use this sense to consider a person trustworthy or not so they can detect false people. If the person is determined to be untrustworthy, the dog will stop following their cues.
A study published in the journal Animal Cognition explored this trend. 34 dogs were tested through three rounds of signaling. Dogs easily understand pointing, and if an owner points to a ball or food, the dog will run to that spot to find out what the owner was pointing at.
In the first round, the researchers pointed the dogs at food hidden in a container. During the next round, they pointed to an empty container, fooling the cubs. When the experimenters accurately pointed to a bowl of food in the third round, the dogs ignored the signal, considering them unreliable guides .
A second series of three rounds began with the participation of a new experimenter. The dogs followed these people’s cues with their now renewed interest.
Dogs have a more sophisticated social intelligence than we thought. This social intelligence evolved selectively in its long history of life with humans.
The next step is to test a species that is closely related to them, such as wolves. This would examine the “profound effects of domestication” on the social intelligence of dogs.
Dogs don’t trust untrustworthy people
Dogs like things to be predictable. When their lives become irregular, they start looking for other activities to do. Being constantly under uncertainty about what is going to happen can make them feel stressed, scared, or aggressive.
This is why dogs whose owners are inconsistent with them often have behavioral disorders . Dogs can be described as “information junkies,” which is why the dogs were fascinated by their new pointer in the study and were eager to trust them right away.
According to experts, it is increasingly being shown that dogs are intelligent, but that they have a different type of intelligence than people.
Dogs are very sensitive to human behavior but have fewer preconceptions. They live in the present, they do not reflect on the past in an abstract way or plan for the future. When dogs enter a situation, they will react to what is there instead of thinking deeply about what that entails .
Dogs do not pay attention to what an ordinary person tells them without thinking, much less what false people say. They evaluate the information we provide them based in part on how reliable it is in helping them achieve their goals. Many family dogs, for example, will ignore your gesture when you signal incorrectly and use their memory to find a hidden treat.
So can dogs detect a fake or dangerous person?
Does this mean that dogs can sniff out killers and kidnappers? Not necessarily, but the way a person treats a dog can say a lot about them .
If you know someone with an inexplicably aggressive dog, or your own puppy seems stressed out with a certain person, it could be a negative reflection of that person’s character.
Likewise, if your dog seems to love someone for no apparent reason, it could be a sign of a trustworthy character. More research is still needed to explore the scope of canine social awareness, but this study is promising.
Dogs may not be ghost radars or evil people in real life, but they can help guide their owners to kinder and more trustworthy people. As if man’s best friends don’t do enough for their humans anymore!