The entire paper, Cooperative Communication with Humans Evolved to Emerge Early in Domestic Dogs can be read at the link provided (at least for now, I've known some things to be available at Current Biology to disappear behind a pay wall later on), although you can read the "abstract" (highlights and summary) below:
Highlights
Summary
Although we know that dogs evolved from wolves, it remains unclear how domestication affected dog cognition. One hypothesis suggests dog domestication altered social maturation by a process of selecting for an attraction to humans.1, 2, 3 Under this account, dogs became more flexible in using inherited skills to cooperatively communicate with a new social partner that was previously feared and expressed these unusual social skills early in development.4, 5, 6 Here, we compare dog (n = 44) and wolf (n = 37) puppies, 5–18 weeks old, on a battery of temperament and cognition tasks. We find that dog puppies are more attracted to humans, read human gestures more skillfully, and make more eye contact with humans than wolf puppies. The two species are similarly attracted to familiar objects and perform similarly on non-social measures of memory and inhibitory control. These results are consistent with the idea that domestication enhanced the cooperative-communicative abilities of dogs as selection for attraction to humans altered social maturation.
- Dog puppies are more attracted to humans than wolf puppies raised by humans
- Dog puppies use human gestures and make eye contact more than wolf puppies
- Both species perform similarly on memory and inhibitory control tasks
- Dogs’ early emerging social skills demonstrate domestication’s effect on cognition
Summary
Although we know that dogs evolved from wolves, it remains unclear how domestication affected dog cognition. One hypothesis suggests dog domestication altered social maturation by a process of selecting for an attraction to humans.1, 2, 3 Under this account, dogs became more flexible in using inherited skills to cooperatively communicate with a new social partner that was previously feared and expressed these unusual social skills early in development.4, 5, 6 Here, we compare dog (n = 44) and wolf (n = 37) puppies, 5–18 weeks old, on a battery of temperament and cognition tasks. We find that dog puppies are more attracted to humans, read human gestures more skillfully, and make more eye contact with humans than wolf puppies. The two species are similarly attracted to familiar objects and perform similarly on non-social measures of memory and inhibitory control. These results are consistent with the idea that domestication enhanced the cooperative-communicative abilities of dogs as selection for attraction to humans altered social maturation.
Some of the testing used reminds me of some of the experiments they repeated on a PBS series that Alan Alda hosted on what it means to be human (broadly speaking) and examining humans developing from infancy, showing the differences between how the minds of toddlers worked at solving a problem compared to those of a young chimpanzee[1]. They were the sort that nearly anyone could see and understand as well as replicate (well, the last part is more limited).
Personally, I believe that not only do dogs understand us much better than we realize, we could understand what they are "saying" to us much better than we do if we paid closer attention. And remember, what they have to "say" won't be a philosophical discussion of abstract principles.
1. One of the other things they explored were the differences between boys and girls that could be observed even at extremely young ages -- long before any social conditioning could have any effect. The experiment I remember most clearly was one recreating the study which found that boys are far more likely to try to scale and cross barriers designed to keep babies in or away from areas than girls are. IOW, they revealed that even in infancy, long before society could possibly impress gender roles or expectations on them, boys and girls are profoundly different. Or as Alda said (paraphrasing), something that parents who had raised both boys and girls already knew.
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