Researchers have direct a discipline to uncover whether dogs have a measurable intelligence or “ IQ ” – defined as intelligence across a span of universal cognitive tasks , rather than a specific skill or trial . While this might sound like an apology for scientist to play with dogs , it actually has some very promising implication for the cogitation of human intelligence .
For the written report , 68 working border collie were assessed on their power to tackle three task . Unsurprisingly , two of the trial revolved around food : The first sought to see how quickly the click identified a portion of food as larger than the other , while the second see at how long it took them to get at food behind different barriers . The third task measure out how effectively the collie manage to keep abreast human orders .
Despite all the heel being from the same breed , they displayed dissimilar levels of ability . The dogs that performed well at one task tend to succeed in the other two , and frailty versa .
What this indicate , according to researchers from the London School of Economics ( LSE ) and University of Edinburgh , is that the structure of wiener intelligence is like to that of human intelligence . The study has been published in the journalIntelligence .
Recent studieshave shown that health and intelligence activity are yoke in humans . However , these sort of association often become tangled in a mess of numerous other lifestyle choices and socio - economic factor . The promise with studying dog is to allow a bailiwick with minimal fuddle factors yet with mensurable word .
Dr. Rosalind Arden , a research fellow at LSE , said in astatement : “ This is significant because in humans there is a small but measureable tendency for masses who are brighter to be healthier and live longer . So if , as our inquiry indicate , dog intelligence is structured similarly to ours , studying a species that does n’t smoke , drink , use recreational drugs and does not have prominent remainder in education and income , may help oneself us sympathise this link between intelligence and health better . ”
She added : “ In increase , dogs are one of the few creature that reproduce many of the fundamental feature of dementia , so understanding their cognitive power could be worthful in help us to empathize the causes of this disorder in humans and possibly test treatment for it . ”
