Editing Dog intelligence (section)

=== Following human cues ===
{{Further|Dog communication}}
Dogs show human-like [[social cognition]] in various ways.<ref name=hare2002/><ref name=hare2005/><ref name=miklosi2003/> For example, dogs can react appropriately to human body language such as gesturing and pointing, and they also understand human voice commands.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/sep/23/dogs-uncomplicated-relationship-research | title = Dogs: an uncomplicated relationship | first = Nathalia | last = Gjersoe | date = Sep 23, 2013 | work = [[The Guardian]]}}</ref> In one study, puppies were presented with a box, and shown that, when a handler pressed a lever, a ball would roll out of the box. The handler then allowed the puppy to play with the ball, making it an intrinsic reward. The pups were then allowed to interact with the box. Roughly three quarters of the puppies subsequently touched the lever, and over half successfully released the ball, compared to only 6% in a control group that did not watch the human manipulate the lever.<ref name="hungary">{{Cite journal|author1=Kubinyi, E. |author2=Topal, J. |author3= Miklosi, A. |name-list-style=amp |year=2003|title=Dogs (canis familiaris) learn their owners via observation in a manipulation task|journal=Journal of Comparative Psychology|doi=10.1037/0735-7036.117.2.156|pmid=12856786|volume=117|pages=156–165|issue=2}}</ref>

Similarly, dogs may be guided by cues indicating the direction of a human's attention.<ref name="coren">{{Cite book | last=Coren | first=Stanley | title=The Intelligence of Dogs: A Guide to the Thoughts, Emotions, and Inner Lives of Our Canine Companions | publisher=Bantam Books | isbn=978-0-553-37452-0 | year=1995 | url=https://archive.org/details/intelligenceofdo00core }}</ref> In one task a reward was hidden under one of two buckets. The experimenter then indicated the location of the reward by tapping the bucket, pointing to the bucket, nodding at the bucket, or simply looking at the bucket. The dogs followed these signals, performing better than [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]s, wolves, and human infants at this task; even puppies with limited exposure to humans performed well.<ref name="hare">{{Cite journal|author1=Hare, B. |author2=Brown, M. |author3=Williamson, C. |author4= Tomasello, M. |s2cid=13369396 |name-list-style=amp |date=Nov 2002|title=The domestication of social cognition in dogs|journal=Science|doi=10.1126/science.1072702|volume=298|pmid=12446914|issue=5598|pages=1634–6|issn=0036-8075|bibcode = 2002Sci...298.1634H |url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt3cz975nj/qt3cz975nj.pdf?t=nvcuyy }}</ref>{{rp|pages=1634–6}}

Dogs can follow the direction of pointing by humans. [[New Guinea singing dog]]s are a half-wild proto-dog endemic to the remote alpine regions of New Guinea and these can follow human pointing as can Australian dingoes. These both demonstrate an ability to read human gestures that arose early in domestication without human selection. Dogs and wolves have also been shown to follow more complex pointing made with body parts other than the human arm and hand (e.g. elbow, knee, foot).<ref name=udell2012/> Dogs tend to follow hand/arm pointed directions more when combined with eye signaling as well. In general, dogs seem to use human cues as an indication on where to go and what to do.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kaminski|first1=Juliane|last2=Nitzschner|first2=Marie|title=Do dogs get the point? A review of dog–human communication ability|journal=Learning and Motivation|volume=44|issue=4|pages=294–302|doi=10.1016/j.lmot.2013.05.001|year=2013}}</ref> Overall, dogs appear to have several cognitive skills necessary to understand communication as information; however, findings on dogs' understanding of referentiality and others' mental states are controversial and it is not clear whether dog themselves communicate with informative motives.<ref>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1177/0963721416661318|title = Current Trends in Dog-Human Communication|year = 2016|last1 = Kaminski|first1 = Juliane|last2 = Piotti|first2 = Patrizia|s2cid = 151423286|journal = Current Directions in Psychological Science|volume = 25|issue = 5|pages = 322–326|hdl = 2434/727094| url=https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/current-trends-in-doghuman-communication(7ad71a39-fc44-4c26-b7ee-91e779276cd7).html |hdl-access = free}}</ref>

For canines to perform well on traditional human-guided tasks (e.g. following the human point) both relevant lifetime experiences with humans—including socialization to humans during the critical phase for social development—and opportunities to associate human body parts with certain outcomes (such as food being provided by humans, a human throwing or kicking a ball, etc.) are required.<ref name=udell2014/>

In 2016, a study of water rescue dogs that respond to words or gestures found that the dogs would respond to the gesture rather than the verbal command.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1007/s10071-016-1010-5|pmid=27338818|title=The importance of gestural communication: A study of human–dog communication using incongruent information|journal=Animal Cognition|volume=19|issue=6|pages=1231–1235|year=2016|last1=d'Aniello|first1=Biagio|last2=Scandurra|first2=Anna|last3=Alterisio|first3=Alessandra|last4=Valsecchi|first4=Paola|last5=Prato-Previde|first5=Emanuela|s2cid=3913013}}</ref>