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Dogs are known for their friendliness, while cats are admired for their cleverness. This basic, though overly simplistic, contrast has sparked plenty of debates among pet owners. Yet, the question still lingers: Is it true that cats outsmart dogs?
We don’t mean to disappoint all the cat lovers out there, but experts argue that comparing cat intelligence to that of dogs is like comparing apples to oranges. “Intelligence evolves to solve problems that are recurrent over an evolutionary relevant timescale,” says Rosalind Arden, a researcher from the London School of Economics who studies intelligence in both humans and dogs. “This timescale is not fixed. Cats, who need meat for survival, and dogs, who enjoy meat but are more omnivorous, have faced different ecological, survival, and mating challenges for ages. As a result, we should expect their cognitive capabilities to vary.”
That said, there’s still limited research on cat cognition. To assess intelligence in animals, scientists need to devise a study that offers a solvable problem to their subjects; delivers a clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer; and includes measurable outcomes, such as the time taken or number of trials to solve the issue. As you might imagine, cats are not the easiest subjects for these experiments. (One scholar even remarked that it was easier to work with fish.)
“Since dogs are motivated by food, we create food-centered 'tests,'” Arden explains. “But with cats? Goodness. Most of them say, 'I’ll take mine with organic double cream on the side, please.’ They’re much more difficult to work with. Hats off to those who manage it.”
Up to this point, experts know that cats possess "object permanence," meaning they understand that something continues to exist even when it’s out of view—a good example being when they bat a toy under a couch. They also seem to be capable of figuring out where the object has moved, even if they weren’t there to witness it.
Studies have also shown that cats can distinguish between different quantities, follow human-pointing gestures to locate food, respond to their owners' emotions, identify people by vocal cues alone, and solve basic food puzzles—similar to dogs. (However, unlike dogs, cats won't look up at their owners for "help" when they can’t figure out a puzzle.)
In Japan, researchers recently discovered that cats might be able to recognize facial expressions, interpret gestures, and identify which food bowl they’ve already eaten from versus an untouched one, even after a 15-minute delay.
However, we still have a long way to go before we truly understand what cats are capable of—and when we do, we should compare them to other cats, not dogs.
“I’d wager that some cats are certainly more intelligent than others,” says Arden. “The challenge for researchers is to uncover these differences through rigorous scientific methods, and to demonstrate that these differences are consistent, meaning they don’t fluctuate with the weather, and valid, meaning that the cats with higher test scores also perform better in real-world tasks. That requires a lot of effort. We are just starting to figure out how to test intelligence in other species.”
