Considerable work has been done on communications between humans
and primates. But certain non-primates, primarily dogs, appear
to understand humans fairly well in limited situations. They
are generally trained. But how? On what kind of principles are
the trainings done? Through which procedure, for example, does
a dog come to capture that a certain sound represents its own name?
Even a cat with a comparatively smaller brain can understand
something from humans. An acquaintance of mine firmly claimed that
her cat understands over a dozen words, though unfortunately I
haven’t yet got an opportunity to verify that.
Does anyone have good literature references on that theme? I
believe that such informations could eventually shed some
additional light on the question of how sounds and meanings got
associated at the very beginning of language evolution.
Thanks,
M. K. Shen
johnk wrote:
> it depends on what you mean by ‘understand’. You can train lots of
> animals to respond to human vocal commands but it doesn’t mean they
> understand the words in the sense that a human can understand the
> word. You can train a dog to sit by repeating the word ‘stand’ if you
> want. There are people who study animal psychology, maybe you could
> try looking there for your answer.
I neither demand nor expect that animals "understand" in the
same way that humans understand. You meant that one can train
a dog such that it sits on hearing a sound "sit" (typically
one would choose that). My question is firstly, what does the
trainer do in training the dog to manisfest that behaviour.
That is, what constitutes the "lessons" given to the dog. If it
subsequently manifests the right behaviour, then I am ready to
"consider" that it "understands" "sit" (solely for my purpose),
regardless of whether granting/acknowledginh the capacity of
"understanding" to a dog is scientifically justified or
unjustified. Secondly, how could the dog "understand" its "lessons"
during the training phase. Since it certainly cannot get the
meanings of human words, the lessons presumably would be given
through gestures and other means (what are these exactly?). How
does the dog come to "realize" that the trainer is currently
"teaching" it that the sound "sit" is a command to tell it to sit
and not doing something for the amusement of (the trainer) himself.
By the way, it must also somehow have the concept of command, i.e.
something that must be obeyed. To get a dog to have that kind of
concept is probably by itself not trivial, I surmise. [Sorry for
my ignorance in animal training. I have never kept a dog and
consequently may have posed in the above some dumb questions.]
Thanks,
M. K. Shen
Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> Considerable work has been done on communications between humans
> and primates. But certain non-primates, primarily dogs, appear
> to understand humans fairly well in limited situations. They
> are generally trained. But how? On what kind of principles are
> the trainings done? Through which procedure, for example, does
> a dog come to capture that a certain sound represents its own name?
Vicki Hearne, _Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name_
My impression from training a Doberman is that you have to stabilize
the language, that is use the same phrases in the same context, and
the dog will pick it up because he has an interest in what will happen
next, you could say because he’s such an eager participant in it.
Like “Let’s go to the vet” even if used only a few times a year will
get cataloged and responded to sensibly, like climbing in car and
waiting in passenger seat.
Hearne mentions that dogs are domestic because they can make sense of
human activities and participate reliably in them. Your wolf may love
you but you can’t trust him around your guests, and so is still called
a wild animal even if tame.
When my first Doberman was age two, I took a napkin and wrote out all
the phrases she definitely knew in context, and came up with 200.
An important thing about training is no teasing. Always mean what you
say.
—
rhhar…@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a jerk.
I could add that my father for theoretical reasons believed that dogs didn’t understand
langauge in any real sense of understanding.
When Susie my Doberman and I were house guests for a while, it was too obvious that she was
understanding stuff. One day she was watching my father eat with apparent curiosity
whether there would be a snack forthcoming for her or not, and my father spoke to her,
“Ixnay.”
The intuition he apparently had was that she would understand him unless he spoke Pig
Latin, and he still had a theoretical stake in her noncomprehension.
Still, he wanted her to stop waiting and so spoke to her.
Susie had several dozen toys with different generic names, and so I could say “Susie, get
your tiny football” and she’d dash off and find it and bring it. There’s a rule that you
must then play with her with hit; you can’t just send her off for various things for show.
That she will be a participant in some play to come is her interest.
Her ability in language follows that interest.
—
rhhar…@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you’re a jerk.