Dog And The Child

Dogs also demonstrate sophisticated social cognition by associating behavioral cues with abstract meanings. One such class social cognition involves the understanding that others are conscious agents. Research has shown that dogs are capable interpreting subtle social cues, and appear to recognize when a human or dog's attention is focused on them. To test this, researchers devised a task in which a reward was hidden underneath one two buckets. The experimenter then attempted to communicate with the dog to indicate the location the reward by using a wide range signals: tapping the bucket, pointing to the bucket, nodding to the bucket, or simply looking at the bucket. The results showed that domestic dogs were better than chimpanzees, wolves, and human infants at this task, and even young puppies with limited exposure to humans performed well.
Psychology research has shown that human faces are asymmetrical with the gaze instinctively moving to the right side a face upon encountering other humans to obtain information about their emotions and state. Research at the University Lincoln (2008) shows that dogs share this instinct when meeting a human being, and only when meeting a human being (i.e., not other animals or other dogs). As such they are the only non-primate species known to do so.
Dr. Stanley Coren, an expert on dog psychology, states that these results demonstrated the social cognition dogs can exceed that even our closest genetic relatives, and that this capacity is a recent genetic acquisition which distinguishes the dog from its ancestor, the wolf. Studies have also investigated whether dogs engaged in partnered play change their behavior depending on the attention-state their partner. Those studies showed that play signals were only sent when the dog was holding the attention its partner. If the partner was distracted, the dog instead engaged in attention-getting behavior before sending a play signal.
Dr. Coren has also argued that dogs demonstrate a sophisticated theory mind by engaging in deception, which he supports with a number anecdotes, including one example where a dog hid a stolen treat by sitting on it until the rightful owner the treat left the room. Although this could have been accidental, Coren suggests that the thief understood that the treat's owner would be unable to find the treat if it were out view. Together, the empirical data and anecdotal evidence points to dogs possessing at least a limited form theory mind.