The Average IQ of a Pig: How Smart Are Pigs Really?

The real evidence that pigs are smart

They can play a joystick video game

The headline study here is the 2021 paper Acquisition of a Joystick-Operated Video Task by Pigs (Sus scrofa) by Candace Croney and Sarah Boysen, published in Frontiers in Psychology. Two Yorkshire pigs (Hamlet and Omelette) and two Panepinto micro pigs (Ebony and Ivory) were trained to push a joystick with their snouts to move a cursor on a screen toward walled targets, earning a food reward for a hit.

All four pigs performed significantly above chance on their first attempts at the easiest one-walled targets. That matters because it means the pigs grasped an abstract link between an action here (moving the joystick) and an effect there (the cursor on the screen). As Croney put it, it is "no small feat for an animal to grasp the concept that the behavior they are performing is having an effect elsewhere." They did this despite poor close-up eyesight and no hands, which arguably makes the achievement more impressive, not less.

They can use a mirror to find food

In a 2009 study by Cambridge animal-welfare professor Donald Broom and colleagues, pigs were given about five hours to get familiar with a mirror. Then a food bowl was placed so that it was visible only as a reflection, hidden behind a solid barrier. Seven of eight mirror-experienced pigs turned away from the mirror and went around the barrier to the real bowl, taking about 23 seconds on average. Pigs with no mirror experience did the naive thing and searched behind the mirror itself.

Two honest caveats. First, this is not the classic mirror self-recognition (mark) test that great apes, dolphins, and elephants pass; when researchers marked the pigs, the pigs ignored the marks, so this study does not prove pigs recognize themselves. What it shows is that pigs can learn what a reflection represents and use that information to solve a problem, an ability Broom called "assessment awareness."

They have good memories and rich emotional lives

The most thorough overview is the 2015 comparative review Thinking Pigs by neuroscientist Lori Marino and Christina Colvin, which pulled together decades of studies. Their conclusion: pigs share cognitive capacities with animals we already consider highly intelligent, including dogs, chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins. Pigs remember and prioritize food locations, returning to the most rewarding sites. They can tell family members from strangers, discriminate between individual humans, and hold long-term memories. They also show emotional contagion (their mood shifts with the mood of nearby pigs) and measurable personality differences, with some individuals consistently bolder or more cautious than others.

The "as smart as a 3-year-old" comparison

You will see this everywhere: pigs are "about as smart as a 3-year-old human." It is a useful headline and it is not made up, but it deserves a footnote. The comparison comes from pigs matching young children on specific tasks such as memory, object discrimination, spatial learning, and a rudimentary sense of self in space. Popular summaries often phrase it as pigs operating near a 3-year-old while dogs are closer to a 2-year-old, and note that pigs frequently match or beat dogs on cognitive tests, with pigs tending to keep problem-solving on their own while dogs look to humans for help.

The honest caveat: "as smart as a 3-year-old" does not mean a pig thinks like a small child across the board. A 3-year-old human is already deep into language, imagination, and social reasoning that no pig approaches. The comparison is a snapshot on selected tasks, not a full equivalence. Kept in that frame, it is a fair and vivid way to say pigs are cognitively serious animals.

Pigs vs. other animals at a glance

Shorthands are popular-science approximations from cognition research, not IQ scores.

The honest bottom line

Pigs do not have an IQ, and anyone quoting a specific pig IQ number is inventing it. What pigs do have is a well-documented toolkit of cognitive skills that puts them alongside dogs and, on chosen tasks, in the neighborhood of a human toddler: cause-and-effect learning good enough for a joystick game, spatial reasoning good enough to use a mirror, durable memory, social savvy, and genuine emotion. The scientifically honest answer to "how smart are pigs?" is: much smarter than the barnyard stereotype, and smart in ways that are measurable even without an IQ test.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is the average IQ of a pig?

A: There isn't one. No pig has ever been given a standardized IQ test, because IQ is a human scale built around language and human-normed averages. Researchers instead measure pig cognition through specific tasks, where pigs perform at a level often compared to dogs and, on some tasks, a 3-year-old child.

Q: Are pigs smarter than dogs?

A: On many cognitive tests, roughly yes, or at least comparable. Reviews find pigs match or outperform dogs on memory, object discrimination, and problem-solving, and pigs tend to keep working a problem independently while dogs turn to humans for help. Dogs still beat pigs at reading human social cues.

Q: Can pigs really play video games?

A: Yes, a simple one. In a 2021 Frontiers in Psychology study, four pigs learned to move a joystick with their snouts to steer a cursor into on-screen targets for a treat, performing above chance despite having no hands and weak close-up vision.

Q: Do pigs recognize themselves in a mirror?

A: Not in the strict scientific sense. Pigs can learn what a reflection represents and use a mirror to find hidden food, but they have not passed the classic mark test for mirror self-recognition that great apes and dolphins pass. So they use mirrors cleverly without proven self-recognition.

Q: How does pig intelligence compare to a human child?

A: Comparable to about a 3-year-old on selected tasks. The comparison holds for memory, spatial learning, and object skills, but not for language, imagination, or social reasoning, where even young children far exceed pigs. Treat it as a vivid snapshot, not a full equivalence.

References

• Croney, C. C., & Boysen, S. T. (2021). Acquisition of a Joystick-Operated Video Task by Pigs (Sus scrofa). Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631755/full
• Marino, L., & Colvin, C. M. (2015). Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus domesticus. International Journal of Comparative Psychology. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8sx4s79c
• Broom, D. M., Sena, H., & Moynihan, K. L. (2009). Pigs learn what a mirror image represents and use it to obtain information. Animal Behaviour. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347209003571

Last updated: July 13, 2026