Dogs Pay More Attention to Places Than to Objects

In the last two decades or so, a number of impressive studies have shown just how intelligent dogs are and how much we have underestimated their cognitive abilities. In some ways, these findings are not so surprising, given that dogs and humans co-evolved and in some ways, dogs were selected for cooperating with humans.

These findings may make us think that the canine mind is very similar to the human mind just maybe less developed. A new experiment shows the limits of this way of thinking about dog intelligence. The key finding is that dogs seem to pay more attention to places than objects when it comes to (human) actions.

The study tracked the eye movements of 21 dogs. Eye-tracking is a non-intrusive way of learning about some key aspects of perception and attention. While it is really non-intrusive, and sometimes even fun, when the experimental subjects are humans, it is probably less pleasant for dogs whose head is kept stable artificially, tied to a chin stand during the experiment. The experimenters measured both the dogs’ anticipatory eye movements (where the dog will look once the observed action has started) and pupil dilation (which indicates surprise).

Both of these measures showed the same results. To take the more straightforward anticipatory eye movement experiment, in the training phase, dogs repeatedly observed a certain action performed with the same object at the same place. The question is what do they expect when they see the same action again? That it is performed at the same place or that it is performed with the same object?

Humans (also small children) and other primates expect the same object. It doesn’t matter where the action is performed, but the object it is performed with is crucial. The surprising finding is that dogs represent actions very differently. They expect actions to unfold at the same place – it is of much less importance what objects are used.

It is tempting to speculate about the origins of these two very different cognitive strategies. Dogs don’t have opposable thumbs and they handle objects much less often than humans or chimpanzees. So in some ways, it is not surprising that they are less attentive to objects and more attentive to places. And as their marking of fire hydrants, trees, and parking cars show, they care a great deal about places.

While this experiment is an impressive demonstration of the differences between the human and the canine mind, it leaves a number of questions open for future research. First, the actions the dogs observed were human-like actions, like grasping. Dogs are not capable of that. But it is an open question whether the results would be different if the action in question were of the kind that dogs could also perform. It would also be important to examine how other animals do in the same experimental setup, including another house pet whose intelligence has long been underestimated: cats.