New study reveals how dogs can decode human language, Not just cues
This study is part of a larger, ongoing research project that has engaged thousands of participants from around the world.
In a study conducted by the University of California San Diego and published in PLOS ONE, researchers analyzed specific kinds of videos that have gone viral on social media, featuring dogs “talking” into soundboards on TikTok and Instagram. These soundboards are mounted with buttons on which specific words are recorded, and when pressed, users of social media have been surprised.
The research shows that dogs trained using these soundboards are capable not only of comprehending certain word signals but also of providing contextually relevant reactions. This suggests that dogs may have the ability to decode human language, hence expanding the knowledge of how dogs interact with each other and people.
The work was done under the supervision of Federico Rossano, the head of the Comparative Cognition Lab and an associate professor at UC San Diego in the Department of Cognitive Science. Rossano, who was also seen in the Netflix series called “Inside the Mind of a Dog”, added that it is vital to understand this study as the part of the ongoing exploration of his lab into how the two species communicate.
The authors noted that after using soundboards, their dogs could differentiate vocal commands whether or not they were sounds from buttons, for example, when they heard the words “outside” or “play” said by other people. This even points to the fact that it cannot be just the physical gestures of the owners or the presence of the owners that the dogs are responding to but rather the actual spoken words being conveyed to the dogs.
Rossano stated “This study addresses public skepticism about whether dogs truly understand what the buttons mean.Our findings are important because they show that words matter to dogs, and that they respond to the words themselves, not just to associated cues.”
The study entailed two related tests. In the first, the researchers went to 30 households within the country to assess and experiment on how the dogs reacted to the buttons of the soundboard. In the second experiment, 29 dog owners performed trials at home with the help of the research team’s remote supervision.
This study is part of a larger, ongoing research project that has engaged thousands of participants from around the world. Rossano further added “We’re just scratching the surface in this study. Future studies explore how dogs actively use these buttons, including the meaning and systematicity behind sequences of button presses. Our research underscores the importance of studying animals in their home environment, providing a more ecologically valid understanding of their abilities.”
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