A new study has found that dogs are smarter than chimpanzees when it comes to the kind of social capabilities that make humans special.

Researchers from the University of Arizona set out to compare the social intelligence of chimps, dogs and 2-year-old children by looking at how each mammal responded to certain actions, such as the ability to follow a pointing finger or the human gaze.

Chimpanzees, the closest relative of the human species, usually get all the credit for outsmarting most other animals. And although the study found that chimps beat dogs in areas like physical environment and spatial reasoning, dogs got higher marks on cooperative communication skills, according to the study published in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Researchers were surprised at how similar dogs and toddlers were. They believe it may be related to the two species’ evolutionary pressures, which favor more of a “survival of the friendliest.” That trait benefits and rewards more cooperative social behavior, the researchers note.

It also points out that the findings could help scientists better understand disabilities that involve a deficit in social skills, such as autism. In other words, it might be better to look for clues about humans’ social evolution in man’s best friend than in our primate relatives.