Talking to your dog is a sign of intelligence

Have you ever named your car, talked to your pets or sang to your plants? Don’t worry, you’re not losing it. In fact, it’s a sign of intelligence.

Anthropomorphising – giving humanlike tendencies to inanimate objects and animals – is “a natural byproduct of the tendency that makes humans uniquely smart on this planet,” Nicholas Epley, behavioural science professor at the University of Chicago, told Quartz.

Hear that? We're uniquely smart.

No other species has this ability, Epley says, and we do it way more often than we even realise.

You might shout at your car for being difficult or call the weather angry – in fact, the weather’s a great example, since we give storms human names.

But it's a sign of our intelligence.

 Recognising the mind of another human being involves the same psychological processes as recognising a mind in other animals, a god, or even a gadget.

It is a reflection of our brain’s greatest ability rather than a sign of our stupidity.

So there's something for you to tell Fluffy all about when you get home.

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