Dogs Know When People Lie, Study By University Of Vienna Suggests

A team of researchers at the University of Vienna found that dogs can sometimes tell when people lie to them. In a paper published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes experiments they conducted with hundreds of dogs. During the experiment, they learned about the dog’s ability to detect deception in unknown people.

The research took place based on the fact that adult humans engage in the mental state assessments of others. As per various clues, people can determine the truthfulness of other people. Researchers wanted to know if the same goes for dogs, and that’s how a simple experiment with 260 dogs from various breeds happened.

In the experiment, the dogs were taught to follow the advice of an unknown human to choose which of the two bowls had a hidden treat. If you follow they followed the advice, they received the treatment. Researchers then mixed up the things. They allowed the dogs to watch as another unknown human moved the treat from one bowl to another while the second unknown human watched. In other cases, the second human was not present for the switch-up. The researchers then conducted the same experiments with the dogs and the second person in the switch-up to see if the dogs would continue to follow the advice.

The researchers also found that the dog ignored the human advice if the person had not been present when the bowls were switched – they were aware that the person did not know which bowl had been treated. Something important to note is that half of the dogs ignored the advice of a human when they knew from the observation that the human was pointing at the wrong bowl. It indicated that dogs were aware of the human lying to them.

The experiment indicated that the dogs are less trusting of the unknown human giving them advice.

Source: Phys.org