Researchers at the University of Vienna are looking for concrete evidence to end the battle of the sexes. The results thus far have shown that females have an edge in at least one area of high brain function, but further research is required before the undisputed winner of wits can be determined.
Corsin Muller, co-author of the most recent study and cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna says that there are several differences between the male and female brains of canines. The causes and effects of these differences remain unknown, but Muller and his team are more than confident that understanding the meaning of these dissimilarities will ultimately help to better understand man’s best friend. “When you start looking, you get some very interesting and instructive results,” Muller told LiveScience in an interview.
The team’s experiment tested the subjects’ knowledge and understanding of the concept of object permanence. This concept has been heavily studied in humans and it’s understanding is an important milestone in the proper development of children. Object permanence is the realization that objects don’t disappear or change when they go out of the subject’s eye line. The lack of this concept is why children under the age of one enjoy the game of peek-a-boo so much. The canine experiment was designed to test whether or not dogs can understand it too, and if so, is there a difference between the male and female understanding of it.
Muller’s team tested 50 “completely normal family dogs,” 25 male and 25 females. The dogs watched one of four scenarios, 2 called “expected” conditions and 2 called “unexpected.” The terms of the expected conditions didn’t break any laws of nature, while the unexpected conditions were impossible. More specifically, the dogs were shown a series of tennis balls. In the expected scenario, a small blue tennis ball was first shown to the dogs. A board was then used to remove the ball from eyesight. Then, another small ball reappeared in front of the board. The second expected experiment used a large tennis ball, which then reappeared as the same size, large ball. The unexpected scenarios used tennis balls that were not of the same size. For example, a very large ball was presented first, removed from eyesight and then a very small ball reappeared seconds later. The researchers recorded the amount of time each dog spent looking at the tennis balls, believing that this would correspond to the dog’s ability to recognize and understand what occurred.
A similar experiment is used for children, Muller explained. “If something unexpected, or say, impossible is to happen, children and animals will look longer at the event.” Males and females looked at the balls that did not change size for an average of 10 seconds. All of the dogs participating looked at the impossible scenarios for longer periods of time. However, female dogs stared at the unexpected condition for more than 30 seconds on average, showing that they understood that something was just not right. These differences in time were seen among the sexes across all breeds and kinds; large, small, mixed and purebred.
Muller believes that the differences between the sexes are most likely “a byproduct of sex hormones working on the brain, without necessarily having a function.” However, additional challenges testing the differences between males and females are needed to see if other differences exist. In humans, Muller said, “there are tons of difference you can find, but for everything where you find men are better than women, you can find something where women are better than men.” Muller hypothesizes that other experiments will reveal that the sexes have equal intelligence overall, with each sex having the ability to perform certain tasks better than the other.
