:wub:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32349079/ns/health-pet_health/
QuoteDogs are smarter than toddlers, IQ tests show
Border collies and other bright canines can learn up to 250 words
By Jeanna Bryner
updated 11:45 a.m. ET, Sun., Aug 9, 2009
The canine IQ test results are in: Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child.
The finding is based on a language development test, revealing average dogs can learn 165 words (similar to a 2-year-old child), including signals and gestures, and dogs in the top 20 percent in intelligence can learn 250 words.
And the smartest?
Border collies, poodles, and German shepherds, in that order, says Stanley Coren, a canine expert and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. Those breeds have been created recently compared with other dog breeds and may be smarter in part because we've trained and bred them to be so, Coren said. The dogs at the top of the pack are on par with a 2.5-year-old.
Better at math and socializing
While dogs ranked with the 2-year-olds in language, they would trump a 3- or 4-year-old in basic arithmetic, Coren found. In terms of social smarts, our drooling furballs fare even better.
"The social life of dogs is much more complex, much more like human teenagers at that stage, interested in who is moving up in the pack and who is sleeping with who and that sort of thing," Coren told LiveScience.
Coren, who has written more than a half-dozen books on dogs and dog behavior, will present an overview of various studies on dog smarts at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Toronto.
"We all want insight into how our furry companions think, and we want to understand the silly, quirky and apparently irrational behaviors [that] Lassie or Rover demonstrate," Coren said. "Their stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity are reminders that they may not be Einsteins but are sure closer to humans than we thought."
Math test
To get inside the noggin of man's best friend, scientists are modifying tests for dogs that were originally developed to measure skills in children.
Here's one: In an arithmetic test, dogs watch as one treat and then another treat are lowered down behind a screen. When the screen gets lifted, the dogs, if they get arithmetic (1+1=2), will expect to see two treats. (For toddlers, other objects would be used.)
But say the scientist swipes one of the treats, or adds another so the end result is one, or three treats, respectively. "Now we're giving him the wrong equation which is 1+1=1, or 1+1=3," Coren said. Sure enough, studies show the dogs get it. "The dog acts surprised and stares at it for a longer period of time, just like a human kid would," he said.
These studies suggest dogs have a basic understanding of arithmetic, and they can count to four or five.
Basic emotions
Other studies Coren notes have found that dogs show spatial problem-solving skills. For instance, they can locate valued items, such as treats, find better routes in the environment, such as the fastest way to a favorite chair, and figure out how to operate latches and simple machines.
Like human toddlers, dogs also show some basic emotions, such as happiness, anger and disgust. But more complex emotions, such as guilt, are not in a dog's toolbox. (What humans once thought was guilt was found to be doggy fear, Coren noted.)
And while dogs know whether they're being treated fairly, they don't grasp the concept of equity. Coren recalls a study in which dogs get a treat for "giving a paw."
When one dog gets a treat and the other doesn't, the unrewarded dog stops performing the trick and avoids making eye contact with the trainer. But if one dog, say, gets rewarded with a juicy steak while the other snags a measly piece of bread, on average the dogs don't care about the inequality of the treats.
Top dogs
To find out which dogs had the top school smarts, Coren collected data from more than 200 dog obedience judges from the United States and Canada.
He found the top dogs, in order of their doggy IQ are:
1. Border collies
2. Poodles
3. German shepherds
4. Golden retrievers
5. Dobermans
6. Shetland sheepdogs
7. Labrador retrievers
At the bottom of the intelligence barrel, Coren would include many of the hounds, such as the bassett hound and the Afghan hound, along with the bulldog, beagle and basenji (a hunting dog).
"It's important to note that these breeds which don't do as well tend to be considerably older breeds," he said. "They were developed when the task of a hound was to find something by smell or sight." These dogs might fare better on tests of so-called instinctive intelligence, which measure how well dogs do what they are bred to do.
"The dogs that are the brightest dogs in terms of school learning ability tend to be the dogs that are much more recently developed," Coren said. He added that there's a "high probability that we've been breeding dogs so they're more responsive to human beings and human signals." So the most recently bred dogs would be more human-friendly and rank higher on school smarts.
Many of these smarty-pants are also the most popular pets. "We like dogs that understand us," Coren said.
We also love the beagle, which made it to the top 10 list of most popular dog breeds in 2008 by the American Kennel Club. That's because they are so sweet and sociable, Coren said. "Sometimes people love the dumb blonde," Coren said.
And sometimes the dim-wits make better pets. While a smart dog will figure out everything you want it to know, your super pet will also learn everything it can get away with, Coren warns.
© 2009 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Fuck your goddamn dog.
IQ tests are corrected for age. Either the author doesn't understand IQ tests or is a candidate for nobel in psychology if there was one. IQ tests are standardized and try to be scientifically relevant. The dogs were not given IQ tests. They were tested yes, their intelligence was tested, but it wasn't an IQ test.
So, according to this data, dogs AND toddlers are smarter than Tim.
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 09, 2009, 04:31:16 PM
Fuck your goddamn dog.
Why don't you don't like dogs? :huh:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 09, 2009, 05:03:22 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 09, 2009, 04:31:16 PM
Fuck your goddamn dog.
Why don't you don't like dogs? :huh:
Stupid, noisy creatures and their owners aren't much better.
But they're living blood sugar detectors!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31486267/ns/health-diabetes/ns/health-diabetes/
QuoteDogs are smarter than toddlers, IQ tests show
but they're no quieter.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 09, 2009, 05:12:48 PM
But they're living blood sugar detectors!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31486267/ns/health-diabetes/ns/health-diabetes/
Figured the Brits would need a blood sugar detecting dog, as everybody is passed out drunk there.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 09, 2009, 05:03:22 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 09, 2009, 04:31:16 PM
Fuck your goddamn dog.
Why don't you don't like dogs? :huh:
Your dog would eat the shit out of my cat's litterbox. That says enough.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 09, 2009, 05:40:01 PM
Your dog would eat the shit out of my cat's litterbox. That says enough.
The natural order of things :).
Dogs > cats
Quote from: CountDeMoney on August 09, 2009, 05:40:01 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on August 09, 2009, 05:03:22 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on August 09, 2009, 04:31:16 PM
Fuck your goddamn dog.
Why don't you don't like dogs? :huh:
Your dog would eat the shit out of my cat's litterbox. That says enough.
Button's been dead for years. :cry:
How the hell did Golden Retrievers make #4?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2009, 07:05:31 PM
How the hell did Golden Retrievers make #4?
I have no idea. We called ours the Golden Dummy for a reason.
Good dog, though.
Dogs :wub:
What do you call a clever blonde?
A Golden Retriever
LOLZ!
Quote from: Martinus on August 09, 2009, 05:50:25 PM
Dogs > cats
I prefer cats because I get to annoy them instead of the other way around.
Too bad for them they don't have opposable thumbs
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2009, 07:05:31 PM
How the hell did Golden Retrievers make #4?
How the did Poodles make #2?, they are some of the most fucked up dogs out there, on the line Dachshounds... :mad:
Quote from: Mr.Penguin on August 10, 2009, 04:29:12 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on August 09, 2009, 07:05:31 PM
How the hell did Golden Retrievers make #4?
How the did Poodles make #2?, they are some of the most fucked up dogs out there, on the line Dachshounds... :mad:
There are many different types of intelligence. The abilities to work with humans, solve problems and perform tasks are all different kinds of intelligence.
Quote from: Viking on August 10, 2009, 04:32:14 AM
There are many different types of intelligence. The abilities to work with humans, solve problems and perform tasks are all different kinds of intelligence.
:yes: If anything, they were given a partial multiple intelligence index, weighted for the areas that affect interactions with humans. It bugs me that the author called it an IQ test, since those are rarely used for non-benchmarking purposes anymore.