 words like "bobbu" or "bodmick." The difference in brain activity when responding to known words vs. novel words was significant and exciting, showing definitively that dogs know the difference between words they know and those they don't.
The scientists weren't surprised by this, but there was an intriguing twist, says Prichard: "We expected to see that dogs neurally discriminate between words that they know and words that they don't. What's surprising is that the result is opposite to that of research on humans — people typically show greater neural activation for known words than novel words." The researchers' hypothesis is that this reflects the dogs straining to understand their owners. "Dogs ultimately want to please their owners, and perhaps also receive praise or food," says Berns.
Who's a good boy?
(Prichard, et al)
Velcro, hippo, and ball (Velcro is the pooch)
In half the dogs, the novel words produced increased activity in the brain area similar to our angular gyrus where we process differences in words' meanings.
In the remaining dogs, other areas lit up that scientists believe correspond to the human left temporal cortex and amygdala, the caudate nucleus, and the thalamus. These differences may be down to differences in the breeds, individual dogs, or imperfections in our matching of human to canine brain structures.
In any event, the researchers were able to conclude, "Dogs may have varying capacity and motivation for learning and understanding human words, but they appear to have a neural representation for the meaning of words they have been taught, beyond just a low-level Pavlovian response."
Dogs hanging out in Berns' lab for another study
One last thing
Though it's clear dogs do learn words, that doesn't mean words are the best cues for training a dog. Prichard says, "When people want to teach their dog a trick, they often use a verbal command because that's what we humans prefer. From the dog's perspective, however, a visual command might be more effective, helping the dog learn the trick faster."
Swipe right to make the connections that could change your career.
Swipe right. Match. Meet over coffee or set up a call.
No, we aren't talking about Tinder. Introducing Shapr, a free app that helps people with synergistic professional goals and skill sets easily meet and collaborate.
In his final years, Martin Luther King, Jr. become increasingly focused on the problem of poverty in America.
- Despite being widely known for his leadership role in the American civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. also played a central role in organizing the Poor People's Campaign of 1968.
- The campaign was one of the first to demand a guaranteed income for all poor families in America.
- Today, the idea of a universal basic income is increasingly popular, and King's arguments in support of the policy still make a good case some 50 years later.
10 of the most sandbagging, red-herring, and effective logical fallacies.
- Many an otherwise-worthwhile argument has been derailed by logical fallacies.
- Sometimes these fallacies are deliberate tricks, and sometimes just bad reasoning.
- Avoiding these traps makes disgreeing so much better.
For Damien Echols, tattoos are part of his existential armor.
- In prison Damien Echols was known by his number SK931, not his name, and had his hair sheared off. Stripped of his identity, the only thing he had left was his skin.
- This is why he began tattooing things that are meaningful to him — to carry a "suit of armor" made up the images of the people and objects that have significance to him, from his friends to talismans.
- Echols believes that all places are imbued with divinity: "If you interact with New York City as if there's an intelligence behind... then it will behave towards you the same way."
SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by The Big Think, Inc. All rights reserved.