Dogs Prefer Praise Over Food
The goal was to learn whether food is what dogs “really care about,” Berns said. “Is social reward on the same footing as food, or is it potentially more valuable?” he wondered. Berns selected dogs that would lie still for 30 minutes while awake and with the MRI running. High-energy canines didn’t make the cut; couch potatoes did. “These are not super-athletic, high-drive dogs,” he said. “Lots of retrievers.” He and his team conducted a trio of experiments with about 15 dogs scanned each time. Every dog had to go into the MRI and stay in a down position for three, 10-minute scans. In the first experiment, participants were shown a hairbrush, a toy car and a toy horse. They were given a hot dog following one object, praise after another and nothing for the third. The results showed that for 13 of the 15 dogs, their brains were stimulated by the praise just as much, if not more than, the food. The second experiment sought to confirm the initial pattern. But this time, a su...
