Owners cats and dogs It has been debated for centuries: Which of the two species is smarter? Which one understands people better? The first question is probably impossible to answer due to the difficulty of making a solid comparison. They seem smarter in some ways dogs and others cats. Maybe the second unknown is easier to solve. A group of Hungarian researchers conducted a study. comparison study To find out whether dogs or cats understand human movements better.
“The dog is a unique species to study. interspecies communication and a promising evolutionary model pre-verbal human communication“, details the study, but notes that it was recently reported Cats show “some dog-like abilities”.
To determine which species understood humans best, researchers directly compared both species. testing capacity For example, the success of companion dogs and cats in responding to human movements. remote signaling. Important: Pets were analyzed under identical conditions, which ensures comparability of results.
When using an object selection task, Cats made fewer decisions than dogs in a laboratory settingTheir decision-making tendencies decreased during the tests.
The cats could be tested a little further at home, where their willingness to choose did not diminish over time and the older ones did better. Dogs made better decisions than cats.Regardless of the type of marking gesture, both at the group and individual level.
“Despite the two species’ highly similar role as human companions today, our results support previous findings suggesting that the cat, compared to the dog, is a less ideal model for studying some human communication skills in the laboratory.”
The “special sensitivity” of the dog
During their studies, scientists state that: domesticationdogs (Canis familiars) adapted to the new interspecies social environment and evolved a range of behaviors. human-compatible socio-cognitive skillsThis may have improved their survival in the anthropogenic niche.
“Dogs are sensitive to people’s attentional state The report notes that various forms of human body movements, such as head turning, leaning, body orientation and finger pointing, can be relied upon as communicative signals.
“Both puppies and adult dogs remote signal movements. Adults also appear to understand signaling cues that can be interpreted as: referential communicative gestures” they state.
“The dogs’ behavior in some two-way choice tests even reflected a special sensitivity to human communication signals. and showed how sensitivity to such human social cues can lead to errors.”
Cats (Felis cat), by the way, they lived in solitude, close to human settlements, but, unlike dogs, they are almost completely non-dependent and only in the last few hundred years did they become pets coexisting with humans.
“The ancestor of dogs lived in close family groups and had complex social behaviorsduring The cat’s ancestor was a solitary and powerful animal that dominated the territory. Researchers emphasize that there is minimal contact between individuals outside of the breeding period.
” territoriality It plays an important role in both species, but while cats’ comfortable roaming territory is fixed and located around a food source, wolves and wild dogs may have variations in their use of access to a food source. Scientists add that it is located outside the core region.
Cats are “too shy”
The first problem the scientists discovered was that only 34 of 62 domestic cats brought to the department by their owners could be tested. too shy or they were not motivated to participate despite being offered their favorite treats. On the other hand, there was no need to exclude any dogs,” the report says.
The task seemed very simple: Two containers were placed on the ground, one of which contained a food reward. The experimenter always pointed to the container containing the bait, and the subject could then choose. “In general, dogs turned out to be more resourceful: they found the reward much more often than cats“says study co-author Melitta Csepregi.
Moreover, cats have become increasingly less willing to make choicesduring dogs were willing to work the entire time. Because cats appear to be at a disadvantage in an unfamiliar environment, the researchers then tested a subgroup of cats at home as well. “While cats’ desire to pick a container did not decrease at home, their overall success was even lower than that of dogs.”
There may be various reasons for these differences. “Cats may have been less attentive, less motivated by food rewards, or frustrated by the unfamiliar environment or unusual handling during the test,” emphasizes lead researcher Márta Gácsi.
“The dog, unlike the cat, is a social species and was selected during domestication to interact and cooperate with humans.. Differences in the way we maintain them may also have contributed to the test results. Considering all this, it is not surprising that cats’ reliance on human communication signals is less expressive,” concludes Gácsi.
Reference report: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-45008-3
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