In psychology, theory of mind is a social-cognitive skill that allows the subject to understand other people and their behavior by attributing mental states to them. Theory of mind allows people to infer the intentions of others, as well as their mental states when those states are different from their own. It is not present in very young children who are too egocentric to imagine the mental states of others, but is believed to begin to emerge between three and five years of age.
It is now believed that some animal species are also capable of theory of mind. Research on apes, monkeys, and corvids suggests that they, too, can predict behavior based on inferences about the mental states of others.
A new study conducted by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, suggests that dogs may be able to distinguish between doing something on purpose and doing it by mistake.
www.nature.com/…
In the experiment the dogs were separated from the experimenter by a transparent partition. The experimenter then tried to pass a reward to the dog but failed each time in one of three ways.
In the unwilling-condition, the experimenter suddenly withdrew the reward from the dog with an intentional movement and placed it in front of herself. In the unable-clumsy condition, the experimenter pretended to try to administer the reward, but the reward “accidentally” fell out of her hand before she could pass it through the gap. Similarly, in the unable-blocked condition, she tried to administer the reward but was unable to pass it through the gap because it was blocked.
In each case the experimenter left the rewards on the floor on her side of the partition. The first observation of the dogs’ reaction was waiting behavior. They predicted that the dogs would wait longer to come around the partition to approach the reward on the floor after the unwilling condition because they would not expect to be allowed to have it. This is what happened.
Dogs in our study clearly behaved differently depending on whether the actions of a human experimenter were intentional or unintentional. They waited significantly longer before approaching a reward that the experimenter had withheld intentionally than a reward that had not been administered due to human clumsiness or a physical obstacle.
They also looked at other behaviors — sitting or lying down and ceasing tail movement.
The dogs that sat or lay down mainly did so in the unwilling-condition.
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In a similar manner, the dogs that ceased to move their tail mainly did so in the unwilling-condition.
The researchers concluded that dogs form different expectations depending on the circumstances of the failed action. However, they list a number of caveats to be born in mind before leaping to the conclusion that dogs possess a theory of mind on a par with that of humans.
For example, as domesticated animals, dogs are actively trained with regard to accessing food. Thus they may simply have learned to associate certain human movements and facial expressions with the appropriateness of approaching or avoiding an object. In other words, they have become conditioned to respond to cues from humans rather than actively forming inferences about humans’ intentions.
I am not a fan of anthropomorphic thinking. I find it unfortunate. I think It blocks our ability to do justice to animals and appreciate them for what they are. On the other hand, I believe it is undeniable that a consciousness of some kind is there. It must be very different from our own, but it is there. It’s a mystery. It’s one of the joys of owning a companion animal. Who are you?