狗狗睁大眼看着你时，可能打心底里觉得你不行｜科学60秒

日本大阪大学助理教授千千岩眸说：“我们的目的是测试狗对人类的做事能力是否敏感，以及它们是否会根据这一特征对人类进行评估。”

对人类做某件事的熟练程度加以评判，似乎不是小狗狗应该会有的行为，但其实这也并不那么牵强，毕竟犬科动物已经陪伴了我们一万多年。“狗对人类行为高度敏感。”它们特别关注人与人之间的合作程度，千千岩说，“例如我们之前的研究表明，狗会避开拒绝帮助自己主人的人。”

所以千千岩和同事开始思考，狗是否也会根据我们的技能来评价我们，特别是如果这些技能可能对我们的四脚兽朋友们派上用场的时候。她们做了一个简单的实验。

“我们让60只狗狗观看两个人拧开透明容器的过程，其中一人能拧开。”那个人只用转动几下就可以打开盖子。“另一个人就不行，没有成功拧开盖子。”那个人尝试打开盖子，然后放弃了。演员们在第二个容器上重复了拧盖子表演，结果相同：有能力的人成功了，另一个则不然。之后研究人员将第三个容器递给两位演员，在其中一些实验里，这个容器是空的，而在其实验中，里面装有食物。

结果发现，母狗狗花费了更多的时间期待地注视着之前能够打开容器的那个人，“而且它们更有可能去靠近有能力打开盖子的人。”不过只有在它们认为自己可能会得到免费食物的情况下。（虽然有只头上戴着蝴蝶结的小可爱……[查看全文]

Ever get the feeling that your cat is judging you?

[Cat meows]

Hopkin: Well, you’re in for a surprise. Because it’s actually your pooch who might be viewing you with a critical eye.

[Dog barking in experiment]

Hopkin: That’s according to a study that shows that dogs can assess human aptitude…and will look toward people who seem to know what they’re doing. The work appears in the journal Behavioral Processes.

Hitomi Chijiiwa: Our aim was to test whether dogs are sensitive to humans’ competence levels. And whether they evaluate humans on this trait.

Hopkin: Hitomi Chijiiwa is an assistant professor at Osaka University. If critiquing people’s proficiency seems an odd job for a pup, it may not be all that far fetched. Canines have spent more than 10,000 years by our sides.

Chijiiwa: [So] Dogs are highly sensitive to human behavior.

Hopkin: And they pay particular attention to things like how cooperative we are.

Chijiiwa: For example, our previous study showed that dogs avoid people who refuse to help their owner.

Hopkin: So Chijiiwa and her colleagues got to wondering whether dogs might also rate us in terms of our skillfulness. Particularly if those skills might come in handy for our four-footed little friends. So they set up a simple experiment.

Chijiiwa: We showed 60 dogs two persons manipulating transparent containers. One person is competent.

Hopkin: That person was able to pop open the top after just a couple of twists.

[Sound from experiment]

Chijiiwa: Whereas the other person is incompetent and they failed at this task.

Hopkin: That person tried to open the lid, then gave up. The actors repeated the performance on a second container, with the same results: the competent person succeeded, the other, not so much.

Then the researchers handed both actors a third container. In some trials, this container was empty. In others, it contained a treat. And what they found was that female dogs spent more time gazing expectantly at the person who had previously demonstrated container-opening know-how.

Chijiiwa: And they were more likely to approach the competent person.

Hopkin: But only when they thought they might get free food.

Chijiiwa: Dogs in the empty condition showed no preferences.

Hopkin: (Although one little cutie with a bow on her head...[full transcript]