18 ms·

Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action

376 points by sam345 5y ago

beckman466 5y ago
The base perspective of these types of 'discoveries' always seems to come with an underlying belief or assertion that our natural world is incapable and dumb. Why do these scientists assume the worst as a starting point? What makes these types of discoveries become headlines? I don't get it.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Human exceptionalism is deeply ingrained in most people: We aren't animals after all.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    We _are_ exceptional in quite a few areas. Our communication skills are unmatched anywhere in the animal kingdom and even the best animals fail at anything higher than primary school math. We also constantly see animals failing to adapt to the modern world with things like cars, screens and sometimes even glass. So I do think it's newsworthy that animals are able to parse complex human action and intent.
    - postalrat 5y ago
      Humans are good at human things. I think the mistake is equating human things to exceptionalism or intelligence.
      - true_religion 5y ago
        I agree. We can all be exceptional in our own ways. Sharks are exceptionally good at maintaining their species (self cloning for large animals is amazing). Dogs (and wolves) have exceptional senses of smell. The hearts of most bird species are exceptionally better than those of mere mammals. However, when it comes to the characteristics where we think humans are exceptional, I’ll only allow another animal to take the top spot if they start an argument. To date, no animal has even started the argument… much less won it.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    Humans are literally animals.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      The commenter's point was, I think, sarcastic; the average member of the public thinks of themselves as qualitively different from animals, and indeed our ethical systems are built around that.
- oftenwrong 5y ago
  The first three sentences of the abstract contradict your comment; the scientists started with a question, not an assumption. >When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? It is newsworthy because new evidence has been found.
- loa_in_ 5y ago
  Science is based on these kind of assumptions. "Assume nothing." It's a game of stepping stones. It does however say a lot about the state of today's science - that is - how far we've come. We haven't come very far.
  - VoodooJuJu 5y ago
    But, like the parent said, the scientists aren't assuming nothing, they're assuming the natural world is dumb. Edit: I'm not sure why this is so controversial. The essence is: every experiment starts with an assumption.
    - Majestic121 5y ago
      It's the opposite : you assume that the natural world is smart, but they don't assume anything, they just test the hypothesis that dogs are smart, and in this way validate part of your assumption. I think it's a better way to deal with things, as your assumption might not hold scrutiny very well : what is natural world ? Are worms part of it ? What about rocks ? Can we deduce from there that worms and rocks are able to distinguish intentional from non intentional actions ?
      - hutzlibu 5y ago
        If you have ever written a game KI or something alike: the most simple algorithms (few lines of code) can perceive the observer into thinking there is advanced KI at work. Same might be the case with natural intelligence.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        What does KI mean?
        lwkl 5y ago
        It means AI in German (Künstliche Intelligenz).
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  One of the reasons is that for many centuries the Western thought was deeply influenced by Christian thought as formed mainly by Thomas Aquinas. According to him, animals are devoid of "the life of reason" with all consequences (basically, we can do what we want with them). It turned out, animals can feel, can be happy and unhappy, and can understand much more than we had imagined. This not a result of our intuition, but years of research. Nevertheless, the harm has been done, and animals have been cruelly abused because of the underlying belief that they don't feel (or, even if they do, it is ethically neutral). It's 2021 and there are several companies still testing their products on cosmetics, for example. At least natural fur is not a thing anymore.
  - mackrevinack 5y ago
    it also doesnt help that on page 1 of the most popular religion it basically says that humans have dominion over all the animals on earth, or some sort of slosh to that effect
  - foldr 5y ago
    It’s worth noting that Aquinas was using ‘reason’ in a quite narrow and specific sense (very roughly, the ability to think about things as such via concepts). His position was not inconsistent with dogs having emotions or various forms of what we’d call intelligence.
  - tzs 5y ago
    On the other hand, in medieval and early modern Europe non-wild animals that did bad things were often given full trials with a judge, jury, prosecutor, defense [1]. That seems to suggest a view that animals were more than just unreasoning beasts. [1] https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/medieval-animal-trials-why-theyre-not-quite-as-crazy-as-they-sound.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/medieval-animal-tri...
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  What part of the scientific method would you have them invoke to start from the assertion that the natural world is very intelligent while crafting experiments? When I accidentally stepped on my dogs paw as a teen, the dog looked hurt and disappointed. The same dog barked at my sister when she tried to stick a pencil up his nose. Did the dog differentiate the scenarios based on intent or did it recognize my apologetic behaviour as non threatening? Or was it because my interactions with the dog were almost always positive while my sisters were not? Or simply because a pencil up the nose might have hurt a lot? Or because it was a hunting dog and we had hunted together multiple times? Was the dog actually disappointed in me or had they evolved to fake that by adjusting their eyebrows to this situation? Or did I project that emotion?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - pxc 5y ago
    > Did the dog differentiate the scenarios based on intent or did it recognize my apologetic behaviour as non threatening? Apologetic behavior is a pretty good post-facto signal of intent! Humans also rely on it with each other. So I'm not sure that relying on sort of secondary signals like that is a real problem for the theory that dogs can read and care about human intent.
- cirgue 5y ago
  They’re not assuming that the natural world is stupid. They’re doing what good scientists do, which is to not take for granted that human interpretations of the world are universal/true/even make any kind of sense from the social standpoint of other mammals.
- nightcracker 5y ago
  Experimental science is all based around ruling out the null hypothesis. For that it needs to be falsifiable. The hypothesis 'the dog can differentiate between A and B' is very hard to falsify. Because the dog could differentiate, but choose to not act. You would need a fairly complete understanding of the dogs mental workings, and scanners to study them. On the other hand, 'the dog can't differentiate between A and B' is much easier to falsify. If you repeat an experiment a sufficient amount of times and the dog consistently has different behavior between A and B, you can rule this null hypothesis out. That is the real reason we always 'assume the worst'. Because 'assume the worst' is the easiest to scientifically rule out. EDIT: I would suggest this video by Veritasium, which also touches on this, at a very fundamental level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo.
  - Arech 5y ago
    That's an excellent explanation!
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  I suppose because until you actually show that something is the case, experimentally, it's just guess work either way. The world is full of different kinds of people. You, for instance, obviously see dogs as intelligent mammals. But there's also the person who buys a puppy for their 8 year old, and sees it as a fluffy clockwork toy that eats and shits. Not only do they not bother to wonder if it's sentient or intelligent, they actively suppress those thoughts because they are inconvenient thoughts. Those thoughts mean you have to care how the thing 'feels'.
- glanard_frugner 5y ago
  people didn’t even think animals felt pain until the 1980s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_animals#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_animals#History
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Similar timeline on babies. But I think it's important to distinguish "scientists" from "people" in this case. My mom witnessed my brother's circumcision, on the day of his birth. She knew without a doubt that he was in immense pain, which the doctor flatly denied. Similarly, people who work with animals have known that they feel pain since time immemorial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies
    - glanard_frugner 5y ago
      > As recently as 1999, it was commonly stated that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old, how would it even be possible to reach that conclusion?
      - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
        Dogma needed it to be true so it was true.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    This is one of these things that most people who deal with animals (so - almost everybody) knew for millenia but philosophers debated over cause it's interesting and you can show off how smart you are and quote classics. You will have a very hard time taming an animal if you think it feels no pain.
  - _game_of_life 5y ago
    No... That's not true. You're off by over one hundred years for the Western world. The UK passed the Cruelty to Animals act in 1876 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_Animals_Act,_1876 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_Animals_Act,_1876 The act states that: > "Researchers would be prosecuted for cruelty, unless they conformed to its provisions, which required that an experiment involving the infliction of pain upon animals to only be conducted when "the proposed experiments are absolutely necessary for the due instruction of the persons [so they may go on to use the instruction] to save or prolong human life" It also contains punishments for not giving animals anesthestia, which is a ridiculous waste of resources if "people didn't even think animals felt pain until the 1980s."
- anigbrowl 5y ago
  Because of Descartes, who felt animals were just meat machines lacking consciousness, a bundle of reflexes as it were. This longish essay is a good introduction to the philosophical history behind your question: https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudworth_On_The_Moral_Worth_of_Animals https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudwor...
- max_ 5y ago
  > Why do these scientists assume the worst as a starting point? You just described the Karl Popper criterion. [0] It's the most rigorous way of doing science. The same also kind of exists in law with the innocent "till proven guilty" [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
- goodcanadian 5y ago
  I am hesitant to add yet another response as you already have a few very good ones. However . . . My wife and I like to call the studies that prove the obvious, "no shit studies," because they really aren't surprising. In this specific context, very few scientists doubt that animals have emotions and intelligence. The thing is, you still have to do the experiment to know for certain. It happens fairly regularly that we discover things that seem obvious are actually wrong.
anshumankmr 5y ago
I notice this in cats too. There is a stray cat I feed from time to time. When I try to pet her, she does not appreciate it by often trying to scratch me. On the other hand, I stepped on her paw once and she did nothing. Of course, this is anecdotal evidence.
- anshumankmr 5y ago
  Also I did not intentionally step on her paw.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- shimonabi 5y ago
  Can confirm. When my dog was a puppy, he ran around my feet like crazy and I accidentally stepped on his paws a couple of times. He was not mad at me at all, he just learned to keep some distance when going for a walk.
  - amelius 5y ago
    Do dogs do intentional things with their feet other than walking/running? Perhaps they projected this onto you.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Mine would paw for attention or use it to paw/scratch open a door, shake or “high-five” on command. And of course, nearly every dog uses them to scratch their own itches.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      My dog knows how to ring poochiebells with his paw to be let out.[1] I also know a dog who will frequently use her paw to lower the phone in your hand or shut the lid of your laptop as if to say “pay attention to me, not this”. [1]https://www.amazon.com/PoochieBells-Original-Handcrafted-Collection-Included/dp/B0016IWV02 https://www.amazon.com/PoochieBells-Original-Handcrafted-Col...
johnasmith 5y ago
They compared across breeds ("51 dogs of various breeds", 9 of which were pugs or 'small' [1]), but some breeds are... dumb as hell. I'm skeptical the statement holds across all breeds. My friend's pug will run full speed into a wall for no apparent reason, hardly the most perceptive of creatures. 1. https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-021-94374-3/MediaObjects/41598_2021_94374_MOESM1_ESM.pdf https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...
MeteorMarc 5y ago
On the other hand, if you fake throwing a stick, a dog may run many times before it becomes suspicious.
- culopatin 5y ago
  That is intentional action. Unintentional I think would be stepping on their paws by accident vs intentionally stomping on their paws while looking at them.
- timbit42 5y ago
  My papillon becomes suspicious after the first fake throw.
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  Our non-breed (as in pre-breeds like a dingo) dog is like you get the stick.
  - spacedcowboy 5y ago
    Similarly, my Newfie will look at the stick flying past, then look at me with that expression that big dogs can do… “why did you just do that, human ?”, then sit down, preferably in the snow.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    Interesting, what else can you say about the non-breed heritage. What is it most closely related to in terms of dog? Or it is closer to wolf? (Serious question)
    - jjtheblunt 5y ago
      That's an open question but I can't now find the citation that the whole presumption that dogs come from wolves isn't necessarily right, that they may all be cousins. She does show a chihuahua great grandparent, but otherwise is native central american. people mistake her for a yellow lab since they gravitate towards certainty and in so doing ignore entirely non lab features in coloring and geometry, and behavior. Curiously the Dingos and the dogs you might see being brought back from the Middle East theaters of war to europe/americas look super similar. My conjecture is that this is the natural dog, that you could recreate things like a yellow lab with many generations of selective breeding, that Huskies and Malamutes likely are more wolf related. But it's only a conjecture. Look at EmbarkVet.com for one source of canine dna documentation, I'd suggest.
Stratoscope 5y ago
Going only by the headline, I don't know why this would be a surprise to anyone who has lived with dogs or cats. I have hurt some of our four-legged family members - kicking them because I didn't see them, or stepping on their tail - and the very first thing they always want to know is if I did it on purpose or by accident. I wonder why this would even be the subject of research? And if it were, how could you possibly conduct an ethical experiment around it?
- IAmGraydon 5y ago
  Because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism
  - Stratoscope 5y ago
    OK, I will challenge you on this. How many dogs and cats have you personally lived with? Have you ever hurt them, intentionally or by mistake? Did their response change based on whether you reassured them that it was an accident, or making it clear you really meant to hurt them? And honestly, I have to say I am a bit offended by being accused of anthropomophism. I am not attributing "human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities" like the dogs and cats I've lived with. I am doing my best to understand their dog and cat emotions. They are not human emotions, they are dog and cat emotions. You can't deny that they are emotional creatures, and it is my job as their caregiver and protector to understand them and meet them where they are.
    - IAmGraydon 5y ago
      I’ve always had pets. I currently have two Siamese cats. I’ve accidentally stepped on them, but never intentionally hurt them. All of that is beside my point, though. What you’re saying is clearly correct. The OP’s post supports this. I was simply telling you why studies like these are necessary: because things that can seem very real can be a case of cognitive bias. A scientist’s job is to gather evidence to reveal whether what we perceive is real or illusion.
armchairhacker 5y ago
How do the dogs know if an action is intentional or unintentional? Is it from the emotions, e.g. when someone intentionally withholds a reward they look angry, but when they unintentionally withhold a reward they look surprised and sad? Dogs are very emotional and can read human emotion. I can tell if my dog is happy, excited, bored, relaxed, angry, upset, scared, or confused. Similarly my dog can tell if someone likes them, doesn't like them, is sad, angry, and maybe other emotions.
- frankzander 5y ago
  maybe because a certain action differs from usual patterns. to me this is the most logical explanation.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    People may assume an action is unintentional but they still check by looking at the person who made the action. Other social animals probably have the same behavior.
- phire 5y ago
  I think the evidence from the various studies along these lines is pointing towards dogs legitimately having empathy. And an empathy that is strongly compatible with humans. We aren't just talking about understanding feelings. Empathy includes the ability to see and understand a situation from another person's mental and physical point of view. Previous studies have shown that dogs can understand a human pointing at an object, and even mentally shift their perspective to understand what the human is pointing at from a completely different direction. The implication of this study is that dogs are genuinely putting themselves in the human's point of view and understanding that the result was not what the human intended and failed due to clumsiness.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Dogs understand apology as well. If you bonk them and then give them scratches they bounce back. If you bonk them and don’t they can get upset about it. It seems that puppy body language has built-in preemptive apologies. All that snout licking and booking is basically, “I’m sorry I’m a PITA but look how cute I am!”
vimy 5y ago
Is this why dogs and cats are generally tolerant of babies pulling at their ears and whatnot?
- datameta 5y ago
  I think that to a certain extent they recognize the cub-like behavior of human babies and act accordingly.
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    Kittens and puppies do the same exact annoying shit to their bodies as human equivalents as well, not to mention babies/toddlers smell distinct from adults/adolescents, even to humans (or maybe just me).
    - Coneylake 5y ago
      Hold on. Going to sniff a baby for science.
- exolymph 5y ago
  They understand neoteny / youth, which is pretty cool!
- einarfd 5y ago
  That would be the baby schema effect. A lot of animals, us included, has infants with similar traits. These traits is then something that these animals recognize and influence their behavior. This is why we find babies, kittens, lambs and puppies cute. In cat and dogs this shows up as higher tolerance for bad behavior.
- summm 5y ago
  Sometimes. In other cases, especially when the toddler cries, the dog recognizes that cry as typical for prey and mauls or kills the toddler.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  My dog is pretty tolerant of having his ears pulled when playing with other dogs. I don't what it is about the skin of dogs but they are pretty resilient to this.
NHQ 5y ago
Unintentionally drops food on the floor.
jlushbough 5y ago
Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked. "Early Forms of Liability," Lecture I from The Common Law. (1909). Oliver Wendell Holmes
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  Reminds me of a funny post on Reddit a while back. Some guy said that he got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water, didn't put the light on, and accidentally kicked his dog who was asleep in the kitchen. He said "my dog thinks I got up in the middle of the night to kick him".
raffraffraff 5y ago
About 10 years ago my wife and I got two recues. A female greyhound and a male lurcher (who basically looked like a greyhound). My wife used to try to get our dogs to howl, because she thought it was funny. It turned into something they would do on command. Anyway, about 8 years ago my wife discovered the song "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon. At the appropriate parts of the song, she would command our dogs to "sing", and they'd both howl. Yes, hilarious. Anyway, about 7 years ago the greyhound got osteosarcoma, a painful bone cancer, and we had to put her to sleep. The lurcher was extremely lonely, so we rescued another greyhound. My wife didn't put the Werewolves song on again, because it made her feel sad. Fast forward about a year, and we're both in the house doing whatever, and I put on a playlist, not realising the song was in it. As soon as the first bar of the song played, the lurcher jumped up onto the armchair at our front window, frantically looking into the park out front, howled, and ran around the house "searching", presumably for Pasha. Tears, obviously. But also the realisation that a dog can recognise a song, years after last hearing it, in a sea of thousands of other songs. And within the first few seconds of it playing. Honestly, I was astonished.
- Klonoar 5y ago
  Beautiful story. I inadvertently trained my dog to recognize Frozen Creek by Circa Survive. Years later all it takes to calm him down is to play the opening to that song. I attribute it to a day or two where I had the album on repeatedly and and he wasn’t feeling well - pretty sure he just ate something he shouldn’t have - and he’d come lay in my lap and sleep.
- arrow7000 5y ago
  This was an emotional rollercoaster. But thank you for sharing.
- tartoran 5y ago
  That’s a bittersweet but beautiful story. I love dogs, they’re smarter than many give them credit. And adopting rescues is the nicest thing dog lovers can do
- codecutter 5y ago
  Beautiful story. I want my children to have a dog Or may be two or three They'll learn from them more easily Than they will learn from me. A dog will teach them how to love, And have no grudge or hate I'm not so good at that myself But a dog will do it straight I want my children to have a dog, To be their pal and friend So they may learn that friendship Is faithful to the end. There never yet has been a dog That learned to double cross Nor catered to you when you won Then dropped you when you lost.
DanielVZ 5y ago
Many pet owners have seen this behaviour, and what I find note worthy too is that that trauma can be easily detected when the animal doesn't react according to intention. Anecdotically, I adopted a mistreated dog this year. He's a really good boy, and shows the exact same behaviour the paper states regarding accidental interactions in general. But if you are for example brooming and slightly touch him, he immediately hides and may even piss himself. It seems to me that he was beaten up with some kind of stick when he was just a puppy. Poor boy :(
- puddingforears 5y ago
  We adopted a border collie around 1.5 years old two years ago with this same behavior. He was completely paranoid and would piss everywhere if you touched him in certain places or came close too quickly. He really would turn into a shaking blob of jello around strangers, and would lose his shit around any of our Asian man friends or even around them in public, he’d void his bladder and back away barking and snarling. Took a while for him to get comfortable and after giving him a lot of positive reinforcement and space he’s become the most extroverted love bug I’ve ever met. He regularly smashes up against me when I’m on the couch and at the most inconvenient times because he’s got the grace of an unsupported blob of ballistics gel, but what I love most about his growth over the last two years is that now he’ll even try to put his nose under unsuspecting pedestrian’s hands on walks! Even if they’re Asian men! He only pees now when he knows he’s in trouble
  - meristohm 5y ago
    What does it mean to be in trouble, for your dog?
    - pathseeker 5y ago
      Selling unsecured credit default swaps.
- mod 5y ago
  I had a dog with similar traits-- fearful and would piss herself, scared of brooms and loud noises, scared of people walking directly towards her--and I know for certain she was never mistreated by a human. She was the runt of the litter, for whatever that's worth. Anyhow, I don't always think these behaviors are the result of tragic circumstances, even if they often are.
OGforces 5y ago
The experiment design doesn’t convince me of the headline.
nabla9 5y ago
It's published in Scientific Reports, so I don't think the study is very significant or high quality.
snikeris 5y ago
Dogs were the original AI. Human technologies that understand us and do our bidding.
- waynesonfire 5y ago
  No, other humans were and still are.
thih9 5y ago
I'm reminded of service dogs that are trained to ignore or oppose commands that would put their human in danger. E.g. when given a command to cross a street in front of a driving car, the dog is trained to push the human the other way. I guess this is mostly about paying attention to surroundings. Part of me hopes there's a little of "my human made a mistake in assesing the safety of this action" there too.
Razengan 5y ago
I’m pretty sure my cat could recognize frowns and understand that it meant someone was angry.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sdze 5y ago
I noticed that with my prior dog that when I accidentally dropped his ball he did not try to catch and retrieve it but only when it was clear that it is playfully intended.
smudgy 5y ago
I clicked on this comment section because I knew I'd cry for your heartwarming stories. I leave very satisfied and thankful for your tales.
gerash 5y ago
Even though the study looks very clear and crisp but the paper talks about theory of mind, etc. whereas dogs IMO are body language masters. It's not obvious that they need to model what the other animal (us) are "thinking" when they just need to pay attention to how we're moving our limbs which is correlated with wether something is by accident or intentional
rerbrerb 5y ago
Better title would be, Dogs Fall Prey To Free Will Myth Too.

376 points by sam345 5y ago

The base perspective of these types of 'discoveries' always seems to come with an underlying belief or assertion that our natural world is incapable and dumb. Why do these scientists assume the worst as a starting point? What makes these types of discoveries become headlines? I don't get it.

formerly_proven 5y ago
Human exceptionalism is deeply ingrained in most people: We aren't animals after all.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  We _are_ exceptional in quite a few areas. Our communication skills are unmatched anywhere in the animal kingdom and even the best animals fail at anything higher than primary school math. We also constantly see animals failing to adapt to the modern world with things like cars, screens and sometimes even glass. So I do think it's newsworthy that animals are able to parse complex human action and intent.
  - postalrat 5y ago
    Humans are good at human things. I think the mistake is equating human things to exceptionalism or intelligence.
    - true_religion 5y ago
      I agree. We can all be exceptional in our own ways. Sharks are exceptionally good at maintaining their species (self cloning for large animals is amazing). Dogs (and wolves) have exceptional senses of smell. The hearts of most bird species are exceptionally better than those of mere mammals. However, when it comes to the characteristics where we think humans are exceptional, I’ll only allow another animal to take the top spot if they start an argument. To date, no animal has even started the argument… much less won it.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Humans are literally animals.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    The commenter's point was, I think, sarcastic; the average member of the public thinks of themselves as qualitively different from animals, and indeed our ethical systems are built around that.
oftenwrong 5y ago
The first three sentences of the abstract contradict your comment; the scientists started with a question, not an assumption. >When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? It is newsworthy because new evidence has been found.
loa_in_ 5y ago
Science is based on these kind of assumptions. "Assume nothing." It's a game of stepping stones. It does however say a lot about the state of today's science - that is - how far we've come. We haven't come very far.
- VoodooJuJu 5y ago
  But, like the parent said, the scientists aren't assuming nothing, they're assuming the natural world is dumb. Edit: I'm not sure why this is so controversial. The essence is: every experiment starts with an assumption.
  - Majestic121 5y ago
    It's the opposite : you assume that the natural world is smart, but they don't assume anything, they just test the hypothesis that dogs are smart, and in this way validate part of your assumption. I think it's a better way to deal with things, as your assumption might not hold scrutiny very well : what is natural world ? Are worms part of it ? What about rocks ? Can we deduce from there that worms and rocks are able to distinguish intentional from non intentional actions ?
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      If you have ever written a game KI or something alike: the most simple algorithms (few lines of code) can perceive the observer into thinking there is advanced KI at work. Same might be the case with natural intelligence.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        What does KI mean?
        lwkl 5y ago
        It means AI in German (Künstliche Intelligenz).
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
One of the reasons is that for many centuries the Western thought was deeply influenced by Christian thought as formed mainly by Thomas Aquinas. According to him, animals are devoid of "the life of reason" with all consequences (basically, we can do what we want with them). It turned out, animals can feel, can be happy and unhappy, and can understand much more than we had imagined. This not a result of our intuition, but years of research. Nevertheless, the harm has been done, and animals have been cruelly abused because of the underlying belief that they don't feel (or, even if they do, it is ethically neutral). It's 2021 and there are several companies still testing their products on cosmetics, for example. At least natural fur is not a thing anymore.
- mackrevinack 5y ago
  it also doesnt help that on page 1 of the most popular religion it basically says that humans have dominion over all the animals on earth, or some sort of slosh to that effect
- foldr 5y ago
  It’s worth noting that Aquinas was using ‘reason’ in a quite narrow and specific sense (very roughly, the ability to think about things as such via concepts). His position was not inconsistent with dogs having emotions or various forms of what we’d call intelligence.
- tzs 5y ago
  On the other hand, in medieval and early modern Europe non-wild animals that did bad things were often given full trials with a judge, jury, prosecutor, defense [1]. That seems to suggest a view that animals were more than just unreasoning beasts. [1] https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/medieval-animal-trials-why-theyre-not-quite-as-crazy-as-they-sound.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/02/medieval-animal-tri...
Ensorceled 5y ago
What part of the scientific method would you have them invoke to start from the assertion that the natural world is very intelligent while crafting experiments? When I accidentally stepped on my dogs paw as a teen, the dog looked hurt and disappointed. The same dog barked at my sister when she tried to stick a pencil up his nose. Did the dog differentiate the scenarios based on intent or did it recognize my apologetic behaviour as non threatening? Or was it because my interactions with the dog were almost always positive while my sisters were not? Or simply because a pencil up the nose might have hurt a lot? Or because it was a hunting dog and we had hunted together multiple times? Was the dog actually disappointed in me or had they evolved to fake that by adjusting their eyebrows to this situation? Or did I project that emotion?
- deleted 5y ago
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- pxc 5y ago
  > Did the dog differentiate the scenarios based on intent or did it recognize my apologetic behaviour as non threatening? Apologetic behavior is a pretty good post-facto signal of intent! Humans also rely on it with each other. So I'm not sure that relying on sort of secondary signals like that is a real problem for the theory that dogs can read and care about human intent.
cirgue 5y ago
They’re not assuming that the natural world is stupid. They’re doing what good scientists do, which is to not take for granted that human interpretations of the world are universal/true/even make any kind of sense from the social standpoint of other mammals.
nightcracker 5y ago
Experimental science is all based around ruling out the null hypothesis. For that it needs to be falsifiable. The hypothesis 'the dog can differentiate between A and B' is very hard to falsify. Because the dog could differentiate, but choose to not act. You would need a fairly complete understanding of the dogs mental workings, and scanners to study them. On the other hand, 'the dog can't differentiate between A and B' is much easier to falsify. If you repeat an experiment a sufficient amount of times and the dog consistently has different behavior between A and B, you can rule this null hypothesis out. That is the real reason we always 'assume the worst'. Because 'assume the worst' is the easiest to scientifically rule out. EDIT: I would suggest this video by Veritasium, which also touches on this, at a very fundamental level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA4w2O61Xo.
- Arech 5y ago
  That's an excellent explanation!
raffraffraff 5y ago
I suppose because until you actually show that something is the case, experimentally, it's just guess work either way. The world is full of different kinds of people. You, for instance, obviously see dogs as intelligent mammals. But there's also the person who buys a puppy for their 8 year old, and sees it as a fluffy clockwork toy that eats and shits. Not only do they not bother to wonder if it's sentient or intelligent, they actively suppress those thoughts because they are inconvenient thoughts. Those thoughts mean you have to care how the thing 'feels'.
glanard_frugner 5y ago
people didn’t even think animals felt pain until the 1980s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_animals#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_animals#History
- klyrs 5y ago
  Similar timeline on babies. But I think it's important to distinguish "scientists" from "people" in this case. My mom witnessed my brother's circumcision, on the day of his birth. She knew without a doubt that he was in immense pain, which the doctor flatly denied. Similarly, people who work with animals have known that they feel pain since time immemorial. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_babies
  - glanard_frugner 5y ago
    > As recently as 1999, it was commonly stated that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old, how would it even be possible to reach that conclusion?
    - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
      Dogma needed it to be true so it was true.
- ajuc 5y ago
  This is one of these things that most people who deal with animals (so - almost everybody) knew for millenia but philosophers debated over cause it's interesting and you can show off how smart you are and quote classics. You will have a very hard time taming an animal if you think it feels no pain.
- _game_of_life 5y ago
  No... That's not true. You're off by over one hundred years for the Western world. The UK passed the Cruelty to Animals act in 1876 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_Animals_Act,_1876 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruelty_to_Animals_Act,_1876 The act states that: > "Researchers would be prosecuted for cruelty, unless they conformed to its provisions, which required that an experiment involving the infliction of pain upon animals to only be conducted when "the proposed experiments are absolutely necessary for the due instruction of the persons [so they may go on to use the instruction] to save or prolong human life" It also contains punishments for not giving animals anesthestia, which is a ridiculous waste of resources if "people didn't even think animals felt pain until the 1980s."
anigbrowl 5y ago
Because of Descartes, who felt animals were just meat machines lacking consciousness, a bundle of reflexes as it were. This longish essay is a good introduction to the philosophical history behind your question: https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudworth_On_The_Moral_Worth_of_Animals https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/Descartes_versus_Cudwor...
max_ 5y ago
> Why do these scientists assume the worst as a starting point? You just described the Karl Popper criterion. [0] It's the most rigorous way of doing science. The same also kind of exists in law with the innocent "till proven guilty" [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
goodcanadian 5y ago
I am hesitant to add yet another response as you already have a few very good ones. However . . . My wife and I like to call the studies that prove the obvious, "no shit studies," because they really aren't surprising. In this specific context, very few scientists doubt that animals have emotions and intelligence. The thing is, you still have to do the experiment to know for certain. It happens fairly regularly that we discover things that seem obvious are actually wrong.

anshumankmr 5y ago

I notice this in cats too. There is a stray cat I feed from time to time. When I try to pet her, she does not appreciate it by often trying to scratch me. On the other hand, I stepped on her paw once and she did nothing. Of course, this is anecdotal evidence.

anshumankmr 5y ago
Also I did not intentionally step on her paw.
- deleted 5y ago
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shimonabi 5y ago
Can confirm. When my dog was a puppy, he ran around my feet like crazy and I accidentally stepped on his paws a couple of times. He was not mad at me at all, he just learned to keep some distance when going for a walk.
- amelius 5y ago
  Do dogs do intentional things with their feet other than walking/running? Perhaps they projected this onto you.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Mine would paw for attention or use it to paw/scratch open a door, shake or “high-five” on command. And of course, nearly every dog uses them to scratch their own itches.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    My dog knows how to ring poochiebells with his paw to be let out.[1] I also know a dog who will frequently use her paw to lower the phone in your hand or shut the lid of your laptop as if to say “pay attention to me, not this”. [1]https://www.amazon.com/PoochieBells-Original-Handcrafted-Collection-Included/dp/B0016IWV02 https://www.amazon.com/PoochieBells-Original-Handcrafted-Col...

johnasmith 5y ago

They compared across breeds ("51 dogs of various breeds", 9 of which were pugs or 'small' [1]), but some breeds are... dumb as hell. I'm skeptical the statement holds across all breeds. My friend's pug will run full speed into a wall for no apparent reason, hardly the most perceptive of creatures. 1. https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41598-021-94374-3/MediaObjects/41598_2021_94374_MOESM1_ESM.pdf https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs415...

MeteorMarc 5y ago

On the other hand, if you fake throwing a stick, a dog may run many times before it becomes suspicious.

culopatin 5y ago
That is intentional action. Unintentional I think would be stepping on their paws by accident vs intentionally stomping on their paws while looking at them.
timbit42 5y ago
My papillon becomes suspicious after the first fake throw.
jjtheblunt 5y ago
Our non-breed (as in pre-breeds like a dingo) dog is like you get the stick.
- spacedcowboy 5y ago
  Similarly, my Newfie will look at the stick flying past, then look at me with that expression that big dogs can do… “why did you just do that, human ?”, then sit down, preferably in the snow.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Interesting, what else can you say about the non-breed heritage. What is it most closely related to in terms of dog? Or it is closer to wolf? (Serious question)
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    That's an open question but I can't now find the citation that the whole presumption that dogs come from wolves isn't necessarily right, that they may all be cousins. She does show a chihuahua great grandparent, but otherwise is native central american. people mistake her for a yellow lab since they gravitate towards certainty and in so doing ignore entirely non lab features in coloring and geometry, and behavior. Curiously the Dingos and the dogs you might see being brought back from the Middle East theaters of war to europe/americas look super similar. My conjecture is that this is the natural dog, that you could recreate things like a yellow lab with many generations of selective breeding, that Huskies and Malamutes likely are more wolf related. But it's only a conjecture. Look at EmbarkVet.com for one source of canine dna documentation, I'd suggest.

Stratoscope 5y ago

Going only by the headline, I don't know why this would be a surprise to anyone who has lived with dogs or cats. I have hurt some of our four-legged family members - kicking them because I didn't see them, or stepping on their tail - and the very first thing they always want to know is if I did it on purpose or by accident. I wonder why this would even be the subject of research? And if it were, how could you possibly conduct an ethical experiment around it?

IAmGraydon 5y ago
Because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  OK, I will challenge you on this. How many dogs and cats have you personally lived with? Have you ever hurt them, intentionally or by mistake? Did their response change based on whether you reassured them that it was an accident, or making it clear you really meant to hurt them? And honestly, I have to say I am a bit offended by being accused of anthropomophism. I am not attributing "human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities" like the dogs and cats I've lived with. I am doing my best to understand their dog and cat emotions. They are not human emotions, they are dog and cat emotions. You can't deny that they are emotional creatures, and it is my job as their caregiver and protector to understand them and meet them where they are.
  - IAmGraydon 5y ago
    I’ve always had pets. I currently have two Siamese cats. I’ve accidentally stepped on them, but never intentionally hurt them. All of that is beside my point, though. What you’re saying is clearly correct. The OP’s post supports this. I was simply telling you why studies like these are necessary: because things that can seem very real can be a case of cognitive bias. A scientist’s job is to gather evidence to reveal whether what we perceive is real or illusion.

armchairhacker 5y ago

How do the dogs know if an action is intentional or unintentional? Is it from the emotions, e.g. when someone intentionally withholds a reward they look angry, but when they unintentionally withhold a reward they look surprised and sad? Dogs are very emotional and can read human emotion. I can tell if my dog is happy, excited, bored, relaxed, angry, upset, scared, or confused. Similarly my dog can tell if someone likes them, doesn't like them, is sad, angry, and maybe other emotions.

frankzander 5y ago
maybe because a certain action differs from usual patterns. to me this is the most logical explanation.
- postalrat 5y ago
  People may assume an action is unintentional but they still check by looking at the person who made the action. Other social animals probably have the same behavior.
phire 5y ago
I think the evidence from the various studies along these lines is pointing towards dogs legitimately having empathy. And an empathy that is strongly compatible with humans. We aren't just talking about understanding feelings. Empathy includes the ability to see and understand a situation from another person's mental and physical point of view. Previous studies have shown that dogs can understand a human pointing at an object, and even mentally shift their perspective to understand what the human is pointing at from a completely different direction. The implication of this study is that dogs are genuinely putting themselves in the human's point of view and understanding that the result was not what the human intended and failed due to clumsiness.
hinkley 5y ago
Dogs understand apology as well. If you bonk them and then give them scratches they bounce back. If you bonk them and don’t they can get upset about it. It seems that puppy body language has built-in preemptive apologies. All that snout licking and booking is basically, “I’m sorry I’m a PITA but look how cute I am!”

vimy 5y ago

Is this why dogs and cats are generally tolerant of babies pulling at their ears and whatnot?

datameta 5y ago
I think that to a certain extent they recognize the cub-like behavior of human babies and act accordingly.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  Kittens and puppies do the same exact annoying shit to their bodies as human equivalents as well, not to mention babies/toddlers smell distinct from adults/adolescents, even to humans (or maybe just me).
  - Coneylake 5y ago
    Hold on. Going to sniff a baby for science.
exolymph 5y ago
They understand neoteny / youth, which is pretty cool!
einarfd 5y ago
That would be the baby schema effect. A lot of animals, us included, has infants with similar traits. These traits is then something that these animals recognize and influence their behavior. This is why we find babies, kittens, lambs and puppies cute. In cat and dogs this shows up as higher tolerance for bad behavior.
summm 5y ago
Sometimes. In other cases, especially when the toddler cries, the dog recognizes that cry as typical for prey and mauls or kills the toddler.
quickthrower2 5y ago
My dog is pretty tolerant of having his ears pulled when playing with other dogs. I don't what it is about the skin of dogs but they are pretty resilient to this.

NHQ 5y ago

Unintentionally drops food on the floor.

jlushbough 5y ago

Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked. "Early Forms of Liability," Lecture I from The Common Law. (1909). Oliver Wendell Holmes

raffraffraff 5y ago
Reminds me of a funny post on Reddit a while back. Some guy said that he got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water, didn't put the light on, and accidentally kicked his dog who was asleep in the kitchen. He said "my dog thinks I got up in the middle of the night to kick him".

raffraffraff 5y ago

About 10 years ago my wife and I got two recues. A female greyhound and a male lurcher (who basically looked like a greyhound). My wife used to try to get our dogs to howl, because she thought it was funny. It turned into something they would do on command. Anyway, about 8 years ago my wife discovered the song "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon. At the appropriate parts of the song, she would command our dogs to "sing", and they'd both howl. Yes, hilarious. Anyway, about 7 years ago the greyhound got osteosarcoma, a painful bone cancer, and we had to put her to sleep. The lurcher was extremely lonely, so we rescued another greyhound. My wife didn't put the Werewolves song on again, because it made her feel sad. Fast forward about a year, and we're both in the house doing whatever, and I put on a playlist, not realising the song was in it. As soon as the first bar of the song played, the lurcher jumped up onto the armchair at our front window, frantically looking into the park out front, howled, and ran around the house "searching", presumably for Pasha. Tears, obviously. But also the realisation that a dog can recognise a song, years after last hearing it, in a sea of thousands of other songs. And within the first few seconds of it playing. Honestly, I was astonished.

Klonoar 5y ago
Beautiful story. I inadvertently trained my dog to recognize Frozen Creek by Circa Survive. Years later all it takes to calm him down is to play the opening to that song. I attribute it to a day or two where I had the album on repeatedly and and he wasn’t feeling well - pretty sure he just ate something he shouldn’t have - and he’d come lay in my lap and sleep.
arrow7000 5y ago
This was an emotional rollercoaster. But thank you for sharing.
tartoran 5y ago
That’s a bittersweet but beautiful story. I love dogs, they’re smarter than many give them credit. And adopting rescues is the nicest thing dog lovers can do
codecutter 5y ago
Beautiful story. I want my children to have a dog Or may be two or three They'll learn from them more easily Than they will learn from me. A dog will teach them how to love, And have no grudge or hate I'm not so good at that myself But a dog will do it straight I want my children to have a dog, To be their pal and friend So they may learn that friendship Is faithful to the end. There never yet has been a dog That learned to double cross Nor catered to you when you won Then dropped you when you lost.

DanielVZ 5y ago

Many pet owners have seen this behaviour, and what I find note worthy too is that that trauma can be easily detected when the animal doesn't react according to intention. Anecdotically, I adopted a mistreated dog this year. He's a really good boy, and shows the exact same behaviour the paper states regarding accidental interactions in general. But if you are for example brooming and slightly touch him, he immediately hides and may even piss himself. It seems to me that he was beaten up with some kind of stick when he was just a puppy. Poor boy :(

puddingforears 5y ago
We adopted a border collie around 1.5 years old two years ago with this same behavior. He was completely paranoid and would piss everywhere if you touched him in certain places or came close too quickly. He really would turn into a shaking blob of jello around strangers, and would lose his shit around any of our Asian man friends or even around them in public, he’d void his bladder and back away barking and snarling. Took a while for him to get comfortable and after giving him a lot of positive reinforcement and space he’s become the most extroverted love bug I’ve ever met. He regularly smashes up against me when I’m on the couch and at the most inconvenient times because he’s got the grace of an unsupported blob of ballistics gel, but what I love most about his growth over the last two years is that now he’ll even try to put his nose under unsuspecting pedestrian’s hands on walks! Even if they’re Asian men! He only pees now when he knows he’s in trouble
- meristohm 5y ago
  What does it mean to be in trouble, for your dog?
  - pathseeker 5y ago
    Selling unsecured credit default swaps.
mod 5y ago
I had a dog with similar traits-- fearful and would piss herself, scared of brooms and loud noises, scared of people walking directly towards her--and I know for certain she was never mistreated by a human. She was the runt of the litter, for whatever that's worth. Anyhow, I don't always think these behaviors are the result of tragic circumstances, even if they often are.

OGforces 5y ago

The experiment design doesn’t convince me of the headline.

nabla9 5y ago

It's published in Scientific Reports, so I don't think the study is very significant or high quality.

snikeris 5y ago

Dogs were the original AI. Human technologies that understand us and do our bidding.

waynesonfire 5y ago
No, other humans were and still are.

thih9 5y ago

I'm reminded of service dogs that are trained to ignore or oppose commands that would put their human in danger. E.g. when given a command to cross a street in front of a driving car, the dog is trained to push the human the other way. I guess this is mostly about paying attention to surroundings. Part of me hopes there's a little of "my human made a mistake in assesing the safety of this action" there too.

Razengan 5y ago

I’m pretty sure my cat could recognize frowns and understand that it meant someone was angry.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sdze 5y ago

I noticed that with my prior dog that when I accidentally dropped his ball he did not try to catch and retrieve it but only when it was clear that it is playfully intended.

smudgy 5y ago

I clicked on this comment section because I knew I'd cry for your heartwarming stories. I leave very satisfied and thankful for your tales.

gerash 5y ago

Even though the study looks very clear and crisp but the paper talks about theory of mind, etc. whereas dogs IMO are body language masters. It's not obvious that they need to model what the other animal (us) are "thinking" when they just need to pay attention to how we're moving our limbs which is correlated with wether something is by accident or intentional

rerbrerb 5y ago

Better title would be, Dogs Fall Prey To Free Will Myth Too.