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Nature & Environment

Dogs are able to tell when someone is lying

By T.K. Randall
July 28, 2021 · Comment icon 4 comments

It's harder than you might think to fool a dog. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 Thomas Vaclavek
A new study has indicated that our canine companions can often tell whether or not someone is telling the truth.
The research, which was carried out by scientists at the University of Vienna, aimed to determine whether dogs are capable of picking up on the same subtle clues and indicators that humans typically use when deciding whether or not another person is being truthful.

For the experiment, they recruited 260 dogs of various breeds.

The dogs were each taught to follow the advice of an unfamiliar human who would pick one of two bowls which had a treat hidden underneath it.

If the dogs followed the advice, they would receive the treat.
To mix things up, however, the dogs were then allowed to observe the treat being switched to a different bowl - sometimes with a second human watching and sometimes with nobody watching.

Afterwards, if the person pointing out the location of the treat had not been present during the switch-up and pointed to the wrong bowl, the dogs seemed to be aware that the treat wasn't there and refused to follow their advice.

Even more interesting was the fact that the dogs also refused to follow the wrong advice of the human who had been present during the switch-up - indicating that they knew that they were being lied to.

As it turns out, therefore, dogs are not as easily fooled as you might think.

Source: Phys.org | Comments (4)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by Brandy333 3 years ago
Dogs read your mind and know your thoughts.   I think most animals can.   When I was quite a bit younger my family and I would go horseback riding.   If I got scared on the horse my dad would tell me to try not to be scared because the horse would pick up on those thoughts.
Comment icon #2 Posted by Nosy.Matters 3 years ago
They are still fooled by Left hand,, Right hand snack choice. Well , mostly ha!
Comment icon #3 Posted by Nnicolette 3 years ago
I find it hard to believe considering how bad some tend to be at knowing whether or not a ball was actually thrown 
Comment icon #4 Posted by third_eye 3 years ago
GUILTY! ~  


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