The Number of Research Labs Studying 'Cognition in Domestic Dogs' is Increasing
"Cognitive scientists once spurned the dog as too domesticated to study. But now many are leaping at the chance to use man's best friend to help understand how social cognition evolved."
Going to the Dogs - Virginia Morell
Their special
relationship with humans is also seen as worthy of study in its own right; some
researchers see Canis familiaris as a case of convergent
evolution with humans because we share some similar behavioral traits. And
because all dogs are descended from gray wolves (C. lupus), they can
reveal how domestication has altered a species' mental processes, enabling the
dog to survive in its new habitat, the
human home.
Some researchers even
think that dogs may teach us more about the evolution of some aspects of our
social mind than can our closest kin, the chimpanzee, because Fido is so adept
at reading and responding to human communication cues. But not everyone agrees,
arguing that the skills dogs share with humans are a matter of learning rather
than evolutionary change.
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