Science - Super dogs: Some words are learned quickly, and long ones

Budapest (DPA) – Pawing movements or picking up sticks are tricks that many dogs learn well. Some people understand too quickly whether they should get their ball or their playing bones.

But there are also true super dogs when it comes to memory: They learn a lot of new words in a short amount of time and can remember them for at least two months, according to behavioral biologists from Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, in the expert journal As “Royal Society Open Science”. In the intervening period, the newly named toys were dropped and not mentioned. Such gifted dogs can provide information about how other animals or children learn words.

For their study, the researchers spent two years searching for talented dogs around the world who were able to remember the names of many toys – and found six extraordinary Border Collies. “These talented dogs can learn new names from toys at a remarkable rate,” said lead research team Claudia Fugaza. “In our previous study, we found that they could learn a new toy name after hearing it four times. But with such little exposure, they didn’t have the long-term memory for it.”

New study on learning names

For the new study, owners should spend more time teaching their four-legged friends the names of new toys. A YouTube video from the researchers shows how Gaia’s owner Isabella — a dog who already knows the names of more than a hundred toys — proceeds: In the clip, she repeatedly calls a plush giraffe named “Ruffy.” He throws the young border collie bitch into the air and fetches him while he repeats the name of the cuddly toy several times.

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The underlying learning process is similar to learning commands, explained co-author and behavioral biologist Adam Miklosi. Dogs begin to associate certain words with a verb – just bringing a certain toy here. Whereas behaviors represented by “sit” or “place” would be illogical to animals, so their learning often had to be supported by the use of treats, integrating the learning of object names into a playful context. Social interaction can prompt dogs to acquire words, says Miklosi. Similar mechanisms can be observed in children’s language acquisition.

Within a week, Gaia and the other five Border Collies were taught the names of six and then twelve new toys. “It turned out that this was not a challenge for these gifted dogs. They learned between eleven and twelve toys easily,” said co-author Shannie Dror. The researchers also tested the dogs one and two months after learning the names of the new toys – and found that they still matched the correct words, even if they had not seen the toys in between.

“Our results show that the word-gifted dogs tested here were not only able to learn twelve new object names a week – a learning rate that is comparable to early word acquisition in children at the onset of a sudden increase in vocabulary –, Rather, most of them kept object names in long-term memory for at least two months,” summarize the authors. “This study paves the way for comparative studies that shed light on the similarities and differences between the understanding of object names in young children and word-gifted dogs.”

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Some dogs can learn object names

The researchers also point out that the test group, with six dogs, was too small – although the researchers called for a “Genius Dog Challenge” to try to find more animals through multiple channels. “This supports our previous findings, which suggest that the ability to learn object names is rare and present in only a few gifted individuals, most – but not all – of whom appear to be Border Collies.” In fact, such remarkable abilities were previously known only in German Shepherds, Pekingese, Mini Australian Shepherds, some Yorkshire Terriers and some dogs of mixed breeds.

“Dogs are good models for studying human behavior because they grow and develop in human environments,” Miklosi says. “With these talented dogs, we have a unique opportunity to investigate how another species understands human language and how learning words affects the way we think about the world.” Furthermore, gifted dogs are also interesting because they show that there are individuals in other species who are uniquely gifted: “With the help of these dogs, we hope to better understand the factors that drive the development of talent.” contribute to.”