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Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

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Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#31

Post by andrewla »

crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

Agreed; this is the default belief of anyone who has interacted with a dog.

If someone were to advance the thesis that dogs were incapable of understanding words I would require some pretty strong evidence before I would believe them.

The soundboard stuff in the article -- not so much. Training a dog to press a button is simple conditioning, but implying any sort of understanding of the language is a bit of a stretch. It sounds like the referenced research (I haven't read the paper) only tests the other way around (that dogs can understand some speech).

If you can show me a dog trained to understand "stand on the yellow bench" and similar commands, but never actually hearing the specific command "sit on the red chair" and being able to execute that, then maybe I'm interested, but otherwise a dog hitting a button that says "I love you" is great for instagram but is indistinguishable from a button that says "look at me and pet me please".

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#32

Post by govideo »

crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

Reminds me of when I was in 3rd grade, I told my teacher that some birds (parrots) can really understand words.

He flat out laughed at me in front of the whole class, and said No Way. I quietly disagreed with him.

When I got home, I told the story to my bird :)

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#33

Post by throw745859 »

noman-land wrote: post #22
throw745859 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

There are plenty of humans that display similar lack or control when flying into a rage.

And system knows how to deal with it. Try to walk around, attacking random people with a knife, cops would deal with you pretty fast!

I have a stalker that tries to kill me every day! But I am not allowed to get restraining order against it!

No! Somehow it is my responsibility not to trigger this smart noble creature! I must walk the right way (not too fast, not too slow). I am not allowed to carry items it does not like (food, babies, other animals). And it can defecate on my yard, but that is not trespassing!

And any hospital bills are on my, of course!

We do not tolerate drunk drivers, but dog owners without leash (about the same level of danger) are not punished!

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#34

Post by gspencley »

crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

This speaks to an interesting question that is extremely difficult to answer:

"Can pets think conceptually?"

A word like "table", to a human, does not represent a concrete. It represents an abstraction, ALL tables, all things that have a flat surface and four legs.

When a dog hears "table", or "walk", do they understand the abstract concept of walking, or tables in general? Or do they interpret it as a very specific, concrete verb or noun?

That is the 6 million dollar question when it comes to an animal's ability to truly, genuinely understand spoken language. This is also why some philosophers conclude that animals cannot reason (it's a hypothesis, though, we don't know). Reason requires abstract thought and being able to prove that an animal is capable of abstract thinking is incredibly difficult.

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#36

Post by larrik »

On the one hand, people put a lot of meaning behind things that may not have it.

On the other hand, I can tell one of my dogs which room my wife is in and he'll go directly to that room to get her. My house isn't small, either. I didn't specifically train him to do that, and it doesn't even come up that often, so I don't actually know why it works.

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#37

Post by inglor_cz »

bitwize wrote: post #26
observationist wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words are a human construct - language. Dogs don't naturally have words or language - there's no bark that conveys a static meaning. They do correlate noises, like whines, barks, growls, with things they have experience with, and are clever enough to string complex and abstract concepts together. That level of reasoning and communication is not language, however. What the buttons demonstrate is that dogs are capable…

What blew my mind was when one of the first dogs to use buttons was confronted with her "beach" button being broken. She started using the phrase "outside-water" to compensate for being unable to say "beach". This is like when Alex the parrot was confronted with an apple for the first time and called it a "banerry", using the names of fruits he knew (banana and cherry). The ability not just to use words, but form ori…

"What blew my mind was when one of the first dogs to use buttons was confronted with her "beach" button being broken. She started using the phrase "outside-water" to compensate for being unable to say "beach"."

This is actually something that the skeptics should address when they claim that all that button pushing is just simple conditioning.

Spontaneously creating a logically sound approximation for a broken button doesn't sound like conditioning at all.

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#38

Post by gmalette »

andrewla wrote: post #31
crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

Agreed; this is the default belief of anyone who has interacted with a dog. If someone were to advance the thesis that dogs were incapable of understanding words I would require some pretty strong evidence before I would believe them. The soundboard stuff in the article -- not so much. Training a dog to press a button is simple conditioning, but implying any sort of understanding of the language is a bit of a stretch…

Look into Bunny the sheepadoodle https://www.instagram.com/whataboutbunny?igsh=cHNtZTk0Y3dsND.... She makes consistent phrases like “look look outside squirrel” or “dad upstairs poop”.

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#39

Post by Dylan16807 »

amichail wrote: post #3
crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

The article talks about having dogs talk back by pressing buttons for various words.

It's easy to see button board claims that are questionable, when it gets into complex phrases or things that need grammatical rules to make sense.

But I wouldn't expect basic button use to be controversial.

Re: Think your dog can understand words? This scientist says you might be right

#40

Post by kxrm »

romanhn wrote: post #20
crooked-v wrote: post #2

So where are all the people who apparently think that pets can't understand basic vocabulary? It's treated like some wild revelation when it comes up in articles like this, but anyone who's ever had a dog or cat knows what the reactions are like when words like "walk" or "bath" or "tuna" get mentioned. For particularly attentive dogs you can even end up with the euphemism treadmill from "walk" to "W-A-L-K" to substit…

I can believe it with dogs, but my cat of almost 20 years has never indicated any understanding of or interest in human speech. She sometimes reacts to tone of voice, sometimes to specific noises (like treat baggie crumbling when opened), but not any particular words. Half the time she could care less about the tone or noises as well. That seems pretty in line with my general understanding of cat "psychology".

Anecdotal but I have trained a cat to understand certain words. I doubt she ever was able to contextualize the language, but she would react to specific words related to treats. In addition to that she would react to her name. Not in the same way a dog would but she would look at you when you said her name.

I think with dogs it definitely comes more easily. Training a cat takes a lot more persistence since they do not have the same social tools as dogs.

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