Why Your Dog Might Think You’re a Bonehead

Karen Hopkin is a scientist. My name is Karen Hopkin.

Have you ever felt like your cat is judging you?

The cat is making a meow.

You're in for a surprise. It might be your dog who is watching you.

A dog barks in an experiment.

According to a study, dogs can look at people who seem to know what they are doing, and that they will look toward people who seem to know what they're doing. There is a work in the journal.

We wanted to see if dogs are sensitive to humans. Is it possible that they evaluate humans on this trait?

An assistant professor is named Hitomi Chijiiwa. It may not be all that hard for a dog to critique people's skills. The canines have been with us for more than 10,000 years.

The dogs are sensitive to human behavior.

They look at things like how cooperative we are.

Our previous study shows that dogs don't like people who don't help them.

Chijiiwa and her colleagues wondered if dogs would rate them in terms of their skillfulness. It would be great if those skills could be used for our four-footed little friends. They decided to do a simple experiment.

Two people are manipulating transparent containers. Someone is competent.

The person popped open the top after a few twists.

There is a sound from an experiment.

The other person failed at the task.

The person gave up trying to open the lid. The competent person succeeded, the other not so much, when the actors performed on a second container.

Both actors were given a third container. The container was empty in some trials. It had a treat in some places. Female dogs spent more time gazing at the person who had shown them how to open containers.

The competent person was more likely to be approached by them.

When they thought they could get food.

The dogs in the empty condition did not show any preferences.

One little girl with a bow on her head barked at all the containers.

A dog barks through an experiment.

Hopkin wondered why females were more interested in people's performance than males.

Humans have been reported to have female superiority in the social cognitive domain.

Furry females seem to have a higher social IQ than males in cognitive studies. Sex differences have been observed in other pup studies.

When faced with an unsolvable task, females look at their owners more frequently than males. Female dogs solve more tasks than male dogs.

You might be thinking, what a good dog, next time Fifi looks at you. She may be thinking that you could do better.

Karen Hopkin is for Scientific American's 60-second science.

A dog barks.