The ability for humans and dogs to communicate with each other using a specific soundboard has become a hot topic among dog lovers. Now researchers say they've taken the first steps and found that dogs trained to use such devices respond to pre-recorded words in the same way they respond to spoken words.
By doing so, we discovered that dogs do indeed pay attention to the words on the soundboard and produce the appropriate behavior, regardless of environmental cues or who is composing the word. While this study does not represent a major breakthrough yet, it is a necessary first step.
Federico Rossano, a professor at the University of California San Diego, who led the research, said:
About 60 dogs understood words.
Push-button soundboards have become popular in recent years, with social media filled with videos of dogs using the equipment. However, opinions are divided on whether these dogs actually respond to the sound of the device or are merely responding to cues based on their owners’ behavior and body language. The Guardian.
In the journal Plos One, Rossano and colleagues report how they conducted two experiments with a total of 59 dogs, each of which was trained to use a sound board.
In the first experiment, one researcher covered buttons on a dog’s soundboard with colorful stickers that included the words “outside,” “play,” and “food,” “dinner,” and “hungry.” Another researcher, who didn’t know which button to press and didn’t hear the words, pressed one of the buttons and the dog’s behavior was recorded. They then did a similar experiment with the dog’s owners, who took turns pressing a button or saying the word.
The results showed that after pressing the on/off button, dogs were about seven times more likely to exhibit play-related behavior than the average of the three buttons, but the outside/outside button was close to this value. The food button performed the worst. Importantly, the results remained consistent regardless of whether the researcher or the owner pressed the buttons, and whether the owner pressed a button or said the word.
“Nothing Burger”
Researchers are currently studying whether dogs can press the right button in certain situations. This work not only explores the depth of understanding of animal language, but may also shed light on whether such devices could be used for communication between humans and dogs.
Professor Clive Wynne, director of the Canine Scientific Collaboration at Arizona State University, who was not involved in the work, called the new study a “no-brainer,” noting that the main finding was that dogs responded to certain verbal cues.
There is nothing great about this.
The team only studied responses to three familiar words, and the dogs only succeeded on two, he added. Training the animals to press the button didn't play a role in the current experiment, Wen said, but the research didn't reveal what the dogs meant when they said certain words.
According to Melissa Berthet of the University of Zurich, the study laid the groundwork for future research, and showed, contrary to some opinions, that the dogs did indeed respond to the sound of the buttons, not to their owners' signals.
We certainly should have known this. The scientific community is waiting for the continuation, which will be exciting.
Berthet said.
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