Dogs pick up robots’ social cues

The Jetsons’ robotic maid, Rosie, could give machines a lesson in social skills. Dogs were more likely to pay attention to a PeopleBot robot — a machine with a laptop head and Mickey Mouse–style hands — after watching it walk, talk and shake hands with humans. When this “social” robot pointed to a hidden frankfurter, some dogs got the hint and found the treat, researchers report September 12 in Animal Cognition. The dogs had trouble picking up cues from a PeopleBot that avoided humans and beep-beeped like a machine. Still, the social bots aren’t quite dog whisperers yet. Dogs followed directions from humans best.