Dogs have a very good understanding of humans

Apes may be the species most closely related to humans, so to us, apes seem to understand some human behaviors better. However, some researchers suggest that dogs understand certain human behaviors better than apes do.

Studies have found that when humans point to an object, apes do not show much reaction, but it catches a dog's attention, and it may even know what humans want. Juliane Kaminski, a cognitive psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, told reporters: "Dogs' sensitivity to human communication is due to their special adaptations. We are studying this adaptability. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that selection pressure during domestication has transformed dogs, making them fully adapted to their new roles in human environments."  

Six-week-old puppies, although completely untrained, seem to understand human cues. Perhaps dogs’ sensitivity to human communication is innate. In the study, Kaminski and colleagues compared apes' and dogs' understanding of human gestures. A human pointed to a visible object outside their reach but within the testing animal’s range. If the ape or dog returned the object, it would receive a food reward (juice or peanuts for apes, dry dog food for dogs). In this comparison, apes completely failed. Although apes were very interested and active for the food reward, they completely ignored human gestures. Dogs passed the test smoothly.  

Dogs’ understanding ability is innate

Apes failed to understand the link between human gestures and obtaining food, thus ignoring humans directly. Kaminski, a co-researcher, said: "Apes have very complex understanding of other people around them. For example, whether the people around are looking at them or not, apes know what you can see and what you cannot." This shows that apes are very intelligent, but they still cannot understand the connection between human gestures and the goal they desire. Kaminski also explained that even wolves cannot do this. "Even when raised in human environments, wolves cannot understand humans as flexibly as dogs. Dogs' understanding of human gestures probably dates back a long time." As for cats, previous research showed that domesticated cats do pay attention to humans and understand human gestures. However, cats capable of this are extremely rare; only a few household cats can understand humans as well as dogs do.  

Scientists found that hunting dogs and herding dogs that assist in hunting understand human gestures far better than autonomous hunting dogs, search and rescue dogs (used for searching buried objects), livestock guard dogs, and sled dogs. "Perhaps this result is not surprising, but it allows us to hypothesize that the differences between dogs and wolves originate from genetics. Our research also reminds researchers to control for species when conducting animal behavior experiments."

Apes’ results in this study confused researchers greatly. According to the widely accepted theory, communication as a core ability should be inherited. However, apes, which are so closely related to humans genealogically, cannot understand human gestures. This may indicate that gestures are a communication mode unique to humans, though some dogs’ ability to understand human gestures well overturns this hypothesis.