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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Female dogs smarter than males--study Female pooches might have a leg up on males when it comes to intelligence, as a new study published in 'Biology Letters,' states that female canine brains are more responsive to situations and better able to detect a change in events than male dogs. Female pooches might have a leg up on males when it comes to intelligence, as a new study published in 'Biology Letters,' states that female canine brains are more responsive to situations and better able to detect a change in events than male dogs. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Vienna, Germany, suggests that like humans, animals too have sex differences in how brain processes the information. Though the root cause behind these brain differences is unknown, scientists believe, in tasks related to cognition, fidettes have a better understanding than fidos. "When you start looking, you get some very interesting and instructive results,” lead researcher Corsin Müller, a cognitive biologist at the University of Vienna, told LiveScience. Study details To reach their findings, Miller and his colleagues tested common household male and female dogs, to see how they would react to 'object permanence,' the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Children as old as 8 and 12 months of age learn this physical law, which later helps them develop sensorimotor co-ordination and memorize events. For the present study, the researchers conducted an experiment on 25 male and 25 female dogs to see how they would notice a ball that inexplicably grew and shrank. They set up a wooden board with a series of blue tennis balls attached to strings. The doggies were shown four situations: a small ball moving to and fro; a large ball moving back and forth, or a small ball disappearing and large ball re-emerging in its place; or a large ball disappearing and small one emerging. While the first two events were natural, the last two in which ball would shrink and grow seemed to be against the law of nature or impossible. The researchers measured dogs' ability to understand impossible events by assessing the time they spent staring at the moving ball. Findings: who's smarter? After analyzing the results, at first, researchers found that all the dogs looked at the ball for longer. But then, considering dog's sex revealed that male pooches did not notice anything odd at all. Female dogs, on the other hand, stared at the "unexpected" conditions for more than 30 seconds on average, more than three times longer than the 10 seconds or so they spent looking at the balls when they didn't change size, the msnbc reports. Professor Corsin Muller, from the University of Vienna, who conducted the experiment told LiveScience, “If something unexpected or, say, impossible is to happen, children and animals will look longer at the event. “When you start looking, you get some very interesting and instructive results.” “It is most likely this is just a byproduct of sex hormones [chemical substances created by the body that control numerous body functions.] working on the brain, without necessarily having a function,” Müller said.
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#1. To: Tatarewicz (#0)
It took fidettes twenty seconds longer to realize that something goofy was happening. Fidos got it right away, and moved on.
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