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posted by janrinok on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the man-did-not-bite-dog dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

If you have a dog, hopefully you're lucky enough to know that they are highly attuned to their owners and can readily understand a wide range of commands and gestures. But are these abilities innate or are they exclusively learned through training?

To find out, a new study in Frontiers in Psychology investigated whether untrained stray dogs could understand human pointing gestures.

The study revealed that about 80% of participating dogs successfully followed pointing gestures to a specific location despite having never received prior training. The results suggest that dogs can understand complex gestures by simply watching humans and this could have implications in reducing conflict between stray dogs and humans.

Dogs were domesticated 10,000-15,000 years ago, likely making them the oldest domesticated animals on the planet. Humans then bred dogs with the most desirable and useful traits so that they could function as companions and workers, leading to domesticated dogs that are highly receptive to human commands and gestures.

However, it was not clear whether dogs understand us through training alone, or whether this was innate. Can dogs interpret a signal, such as a gesture, without specific training, or even without having met the signaling person previously? One way to find out is to see whether untrained, stray dogs can interpret and react to human gestures.

[...] To investigate, Dr. Anindita Bhadra of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata, India, and colleagues studied stray dogs across several Indian cities. The researchers approached solitary stray dogs and placed two covered bowls on the ground near them. A researcher then pointed to one of the two bowls, either momentarily or repeatedly, and recorded whether the dog approached the indicated bowl. They also recorded the perceived emotional state of the dogs during the experiment.

Approximately half of the dogs did not approach either bowl. However, the researchers noticed that these dogs were anxious and may have had bad experiences with humans before. The dogs who approached the bowls were noted as friendlier and less anxious, and approximately 80% correctly followed the pointing signals to one of the bowls, regardless of whether the pointing was momentary or repeated. This suggests that the dogs could indeed decipher complex gestures.

"We thought it was quite amazing that the dogs could follow a gesture as abstract as momentary pointing," explained Bhadra. "This means that they closely observe the human, whom they are meeting for the first time, and they use their understanding of humans to make a decision. This shows their intelligence and adaptability."

Journal Reference:

Debottam Bhattacharjee, Sarab Mandal, Piuli Shit, Mebin George Varghese, Aayushi Vishnoi, Anindita Bhadra. Free-Ranging Dogs Are Capable of Utilizing Complex Human Pointing Cues. Frontiers in Psychology, 2020; 10 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02818


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:40PM (13 children)

    by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Saturday January 25 2020, @11:40PM (#948646)

    Where did these strays come from? We don't generally have large packs of feral dogs roaming around generation after generation. My guess is that most got lost or despicably, were dumped, and they were already used to humans.

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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:16AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:16AM (#948662)

    It's India, where dogs and Indians shit on every street.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:24AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:24AM (#948667)

      Penniless coders shit in shanty towns outside the offices of billionaire tech corporations in Sillicon Valley.

      Coders gonna change the world, bro. Open source gonna make you poor.

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:33AM (3 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:33AM (#948671) Journal

        We had the perfect example of this in plain view, perennially homeless RMS, but we were so invested in the dream that we would not acknowledge the reality.

        We have only ourselves to blame.

        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:48AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:48AM (#948677)

          RMS promised GNU would create a post-scarcity world where nobody would have to work, and still 70% of Soylentils vote to live in the Star Trek universe. We learned nothing.

          • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:03AM (1 child)

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:03AM (#948684) Journal
            I suspect RMS is delusional. And his idea of post-scarcity is that everyone is equally poor. That's his idea of justice.
            --
            SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:58AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @02:58AM (#948739)

              Viva socialism, viva Saint IGNUcius [stallman.org] or should that be ignoramus? No narcissism there whatsoever - work for free to herald the GNU World Order!

              In fairness, there was no barriers against monetization with the GPL but probably not enough to support it in a socially meaningful way. Hackers are still mostly in the employ of corporations.

  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:20AM (5 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:20AM (#948665) Journal
    It's dogs in cities in India. Very much used to humans. They even shit in the same streets. (There are enough Indians without flush toilets to form a line from the earth to the moon). And yes, I did the math. 600,000,000 million Indians shitting outside, 400,000 km from earth to moon, gives 1,500 per kilometre or 1 every 2 feet.)
    --
    SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:26AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:26AM (#948668)

      Show us your scat collection of hot Indian women shitting.

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:38AM (2 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:38AM (#948673) Journal

        The consequences of not having a safe place for women to urinate and dedicate. To lower the risk of rape, they have to swallow their pride and keep it inside for up to 18 hours a day.

        Bladder and urinary tract infections are not a joke. Neither is the risk of rape or getting killed.

        --
        SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
        • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:51AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @12:51AM (#948678)

          Indian men love a woman who pisses and shits on him while he is raping her.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:09AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:09AM (#948745)

          The consequences of not having a safe place for women to urinate and dedicate deficate. To lower the risk of rape, they have to swallow their pride and keep it inside for up to 18 hours a day.

          Like these girls? [walesonline.co.uk]

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @03:06AM (#948743)

      And yes, I did the math.

      My, what a charmed life you lead.

      Here is a question; based on the length of the average human turd, how many shits would it take to match the amount of excrement that emanates from Adam Shiff's face-hole?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 26 2020, @01:48AM (#948701)

    When I visited Chili they have stray dogs all over and they look very healthy. Often big healthy looking dogs. No one is really afraid of them though.