Can you teach your dog to talk?
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- Опубликовано: 1 сен 2020
- Bunny, a one year old Sheepadoodle, a mix between an Old English sheepdog and a poodle, is already well beyond mastering commands like "Sit!' and 'Stay!".
Bunny is learning to talk. And three million Tik Tok followers are tuning in to watch.
“It's bonkers yeah,” says Alexis Divine. “I definitely did not expect that, but it's fun.”
Inspired by speech pathologist Christina Hunger's work with her dog Stella, Devine is teaching Bunny using augmentative and alternative communication devices.
“It's a way for nonverbal people to communicate using buttons,” says Devine.
It all began weeks after Devine and her husband brought Bunny home. With a single button for “outside”.
“Anytime she wanted to go outside or I was planning on letting her outside, I would say the word ‘outside’ and I would press the outside button,” Devine says. “And then I would let her outside. And then when she came back in I would say ‘all done outside’ and press the outside button again.
It has taken a lot of repetition and reinforcement but Devine believes Bunny associates that button --and others --with their actual meaning.
Bunny now has a soundboard made up of more than 50 words.
She will press the button labelled “Scritches” when she wants to get her ears scratched.
Devine isn’t trying to convince anyone her dog can talk.
“I think it is an excellent example of operant conditioning,” she says. “She builds an association with an individual button or a combination of buttons. I don't think it's language but I definitely believe that she is communicating.”
Cognitive scientists are definitely intrigued. Bunny is the subject of a study by UC San Diego. There are three cameras always trained on her soundboard. During our interview, Bunny pressed two buttons. “Play” and “Friend”.
That’s how I wound up talking a break to play “hide the hippo”, a squeak toy Bunny likes to go burrowing under couch cushions to find.
Bunny is a good girl, super smart and affectionate. But how much is this Bunny talking and how much is this conditioning?
While scientists try to figure that out, Bunny and Alexis have at the very least inspired people to interact more with their dogs
“If people are taking away from this that they want to have a deeper connection with their dog, I think that's amazing,” Devine says.
#cutedog #bunnythedog #k5evening
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Language is communication through signs. It’s conditioning and expression. Bunny is doing that. It’s basic and how much she understands about the “language” she is using is unclear, but she is using a form of language to be sure.
I fully agree, I think you put it well.
There's a difference between conditioning and actually understanding. The dog only understand buttons that are directly related to a reward or an objective it desires. Words like why, love you, stranger it presses because it's been conditioned too. It's not clicking why because it wants to know "why". It's clicking it because it had success getting a desire in the past and is repeating it. Same with circuses, the animals do not understand that they are performing they just doing it out of fear/reward system while training.
I see no difference between what you are describing and what humans do. We as humans express ourselves in through emotions, expressions, and through speech. Animals do just that, sure they may not “comprehend or know how to spell or the full meaning of a word” but she associated buttons with a thing. Once done enough that button is associated with with the thing or place. That’s thinking. Same thing with us we do something enough or see it done enough we start doing it and becoming habituated to a certain thing or place.
Literally cried when she pressed bunny friend
Dogs can learn up to 200 human words. Humans have so far managed to decipher approximately 7 barks.
Because dog didn't have a language
Teach dog Finnish, I bet the dog probably would be confused as you are
@@esplooze Finnish would be just as hard as english. It's the words and their meanings that are easy. Rats appear to have a built-in language, and scientists are trying to decipher, but most of it is infrasound humans can't hear. Similarly, familias of orcas and dolphins have been seen to have different speech patterns from each family, implying languages in the same way different spoken tongues between villages of different land regions.
@@esplooze That's not true. Just because you don't recognize something doesn't mean it doesn't have a meaning.
@@esplooze Almost all animals have verbal communications. The greatest examples of this are crows, dolphins, and prairie dogs (prairie dogs being the most significant, since it appears they have the most advanced verbal communication in the animal kingdom.) Meanwhile, cats only meow to communicate with humans, not with each other.
As a side note, most breeds of dogs will have an easier time with any Latin-based or northern European language, given that it's become a part of their genetic memory through countless generations of breeding. They're far more responsive to it, and pick up commands easier from these languages.
The thing about bunny is if she was only using the buttons that were associated with common everyday things like, outside, mom, dad, tug... which i'm sure she uses most often... but there was a recent video of her explaining that her paw hurts and her owner found a throne in her paw. If that doesn't prove that perhaps... it's a bit more than repetition and remembering that this middle button meant i get to play or so on and so forth, idk what does.
do you have a link to the video where she says her paw hurts?
Thorne not throne
@@bellasdonnas I saw that one too I think it's on Tik Tok
@@junglistgrrl HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE'S NOT A QUEEN?!?!..
lol jk ;p
@@bellasdonnas I think the thumbnail says ouch on her channel
just go and find the video where bunny said "stranger ouch paw" and came to her showing that something was stuck in her paw and hurts.
*Film cuts to average school*
Voice: "But how much of this is learned or just conditioning?"
If she's combining words to convey desires, then it's not conditioning.
2:30 understatement of the century, Bunny is, in fact, a great girl.
I have a Shepherd, Husky mix named Lilly who completely understands words like "outside" "food" and "Get your toy"..
When I say "Get your toy" she goes, grabs her favorite toy and places it in my hand.. When I say "Outside" she gives a low bark and runs to the front door.. and finally when I say "Food" she will run to her food bowl and paw at it if she is hungry..
These aren't words I taught her, oddly enough, she literally trained herself and genuinely seems to understand the words..
So, I definitely believe dogs can understand the human language given enough time/training.. They are a lot smarter than we give them credit for..
Than we give them credit for? I don't think anybody in the last 20,000 years has disputed the fact that dogs can associate a couple of human noises with simple meanings. They recognize the sounds we make mostly by intonation. It'd be weird for a dog not to be able to do that.
she's the best doggo I've ever seen to be honest. There's definitely memorization of sounds/actions associated with rewards in the brain, but she's become so patient and self-aware of how it works. She knows she can use it to get a variety of different things.
I think a lot of it has to do with her owners. Bunny is smart and very curious, don't get me wrong, but Alexis spends a lot of time with her--much more than the average dog ever gets. She is also very patient with Bunny and also very active with her. What she's doing takes so much work. You could probably get similar results with any (smart) dog if you put enough time and energy into it.
Poignant question at the end. I like that this lady is grounded.
Dogs and cats are in the level of a 4- 5year old child. I'm sure they do know what those words mean and they want to communicate with their people. They did that before ( noggin, whining, scratching door, etc.) But now they have an easier way to express themselves. In a way that we can understand. Animals are way smarter and intelligent than humans give them credit for.
Bunny is amazing. Dogs can understand every word you say. I know my greyhound does ❤️❤️❤️
I recently saw Bunny presumably ask her "mom" where she goes to poop. It was eerie and amazing.
"I wouldn't call it language"
What is language, but a means to communicate? If Bunny understands that pressing the outside button means going outside, then it doesn't matter whether she knows the definition of the word or even recognizes it as a word at all. She can still communicate, in this language that she and her owner have made up, that she wants to go outside. I am skeptical of the "concerned", "friend", "I love you", and other such conceptual buttons. But practical buttons like "outside", "play", "mom", "dad", and other such objective buttons seem to be understood quite well.
My dog is a year in a half and she’s a poodle miniature mix but she looks more like a mini snauzer mix. And I don’t have buttons for her to push but she knows when she wants to go out I tell her and gets excited runs to the door. Then when she wants a ride in my car all I tell her is vroom vroom and she knows. She’s a smart dog I been teaching her words and people tell me she doesn’t know anything but she really does.
Look lemme tell u as a student currently studying language and anthropology. This is literally language. And it is SO COOL
this dog is living its best life
what's the difference between talking and conditioning? People are animals just like anything else.
People have genes that are important for language that other animals just don't have. That's why we can learn complex speech, but other animals can just learn rudimentary speech. As for the difference between talking and conditioning... It's a bit blurry. I think conditioning is when the dog just presses buttons because she learnt that she gets something, but talking would be if she knew that the words are building blocks with different meanings that she can use to create new meanings. Which some animals with these buttons can definitely do by the way.
However, some argue that speech is also just something that is used to get something in humans. Either to ask for something directly or for stuff like socialising or getting attention.
conditioning: she has learned that button X results in stimuli X, while button Y results in stimuli Y
talking: can reflect upon the meaning of the sound the button makes in an abstract sense, and can contextualize it in a more advanced way
Human beings have specific genetics to help develop speech, dogs don’t understand language like humans do so they can’t have full conversations. So instead of teaching them to talk we condition them to understand simple vocal signals like “outside” as meaning “you can go outside” they don’t know the word outside means... well outside but they do know that the signal “outside” means they can leave their indoor area and go outside, I know the way I explained it is a bit confusing but I hope you can get the jist of it.
For the sake of argument one has to be careful of assumptions. Saying that speech is complex is an assumption. From what I know about speech for humans is that it's a sacrifice of other abilities to use language. Other theories, the left brain which is used for language used to be used for additional visual processing, so that's why monkeys have a much better and faster visual short term memory, as proof of studies done on monkeys. Now from a dog perspective our inability to process odors can allow a dog to make assumptions about human's abilities. As far as speech being complex, Chomsky has stated that people's language abilities haven't improved since they where developed 50,000 years ago, so that also supports language is more of a hijacking of the brain that something evolved for. So if that theory is correct animals brains can also be hijacked. What's also a factor his is most animals also have better hearing than humans. One has to wonder what abilities a dog might lose to take on logic for word association.
@@AstroSquid okay fine UNDERSTANDING and being able to thoroughly wrap your head around what you are saying is complex, that’s not an assumption that’s the reason that the only animals that come close to being able to make language are dolphins, that’s because they have big complex brains that have evolved to make groups and understand each other within those groups. Please just look at any reliable documentary about speech and the human language.
I’m teaching my dogs to do this and it’s surprisingly easy. All you gotta do is repeatedly hit the button with the word you want and then just do the motion or the thing you want your dogs to hit the button for.
I love ❤️ Bunny!
Bunny is a smart goodgirl!
Give this tech to a border collie
Holy crap this dog is cute
1000 years from now Dogs will be commenting on youtube.
Still underestimating other mammalian minds.
My 10 1/2 year old dog "grunts" at me. I consider her talking to me as I am giving her a treat.
I wish I had known this sooner. My dog is 16 but still very alert and active, only problem is he has cataracts and is partially deaf. I’m sure he could learn, but he is too stubborn 😂 he knows he doesn’t actually have to do anything to get what he wants at this point
What's sad was she asked why is she a dog? And her got sad and said "help". 😢
Once you start stringing words together it's not just communicating it is talkin
How much is talking and how much is conditioning? Talking, or leaning language us conditioning
What is that board thing that the dog is stepping on to talk to her owner and where can you get it from
I follow Bunny on Tiktok and she is becoming self aware...😳
I'm ordering buttons now
Where can I get the buttons?
A lot of animals actually learn with the "reward/punishment" system. Animals perform certain tasks to get certain rewards.
@@walls116 Yes, with "punishment" I mean that animals don't get certain rewards (when they don't press the right buttons).
You mean like children and people learn
@@es4666 Humans also use the same "reward/punishment" system, but humans also have the ability to solve complex problems.
@@walls116 I mean...giving a firm "No!" is an effective punishment for most dogs. That's not really abuse. You can punish a dog without being cruel. (Not that it would good to do that for something as dumb as buttons)
@@walls116 Ignoring is also a form of punishment. That's not abuse either, as long as you do it sparingly.
where can i buy this product for dogs to say things.???
There's a difference between conditioning and actually understanding. The dog only understand buttons that are directly related to a reward or an objective it desires. Words like why, love you, stranger it presses because it's been conditioned too. It's not clicking why because it wants to know "why". It's clicking it because it had success getting a desire in the past and is repeating it. Same with circuses, the animals do not understand that they are performing they just doing it out of fear/reward system while training.
It's the same way toddlers learn to talk. conditioning by association 🤷♀️ They eventually learn the meaning behind each word and understanding things like sentence structure, but the dogs using these boards definitely have a rudimentary understanding of the words to the same degree as a toddler does. Having dogs myself, they definitely communicate with me all the time. This is just the next step up in 'talking' to them.
Dogs usually understand words they hear often like home, outside, names of people around them.. . But to press the correct buttons to express want they want I am a bit sceptic.
my parents did something similar to the outside button with their dog (which died before I remember) with a bell.
Try chance the bottens around and se if she can still get it right but put them back again..
Cats too
where can i buy that soundbar please?
On their website 😁
Guess there isn’t a button for “Stop, with the selfies.”
Amazing !
In ww2 the germans already understand this principle. They teach dogs to communicate true a letter board. After that the must act as a spy and report back.
If dogs were to one day become as intelligent as their human owners, would they begin to resent their bodies and yearn to be human?
I am so looking forward to the end of the News Voice in our media. It has never added anything - only sensationalization on a good day. (Vice is 100% more watchable for having real people speak in their real voices).
Has she communicated that "winter is coming" yet Cerci?
How is this small channel verified
I’m sorry what do you think Verification means?
@@SatansFire RUclips verification normally requires 100K subs
@@falxie_ Or a confirmed major platform elsewhere
...because it is a local news channel and not just an individual person's channel probably.
@@mygirldarby Op rlly thinks verified means status symbol of popular channel and not "verified"
Does Bunny understand “No”??? Because it seems Bunny has her human conditioned.
Who's this. It's you bunny.........help
I need that board for my wife
My dig has yet to understand "sit" or "bark"
We need to send these to the white house so Biden can tell us what he wants to do to our country...
3 million tiktok followers Me: TIK TOK IS STUPID YOU LOST A LIKE AND A SUBSCRIBER HOPE UR HAPPY
so....
Remember Koko the Gorilla? A lot smarter than dogs. Turns out she was guessing most of the time and was randomly right. Humans have a strong inner bias looking for meaning, either it's finding a face on the moon or understanding sign language from a gorilla. Koko was what happens when faulty research and dishonest researchers depend on funding, not backed up by proper research methods. Turns out animals don't have the phyiscal brain structure at all to understand any verbal or sentence like meaning. It's an extremely human trait and it makes as much sense to a dog or a gorilla as ultrasound from a bat does to us. It's a trick, nothing else. Regards, a Psychologist.
There is certainly nothing wrong with the vocal cords of cats or dogs. So why are they unable to talk for real? The reason is that their brains are lacking certain parts.
I wonder if they spend this much time on their own kids?
Do they even have kids?
They dont even have kids. They're a young couple living in the bay area. Not a lot of young couples here have kids because it's way too expensive.
@@e3IZrZ lmao it's a pretty easy conclusion to come to if you're smart. or if you're not a troll. 🤷🏼♀️
@@e3IZrZ lol, you got angry, so smart aren't ya, jajajaja
@@e3IZrZ You are the only crazy one here. This is a study being done by a university. She isn't just some random lady placing buttons in front of her dog. This is the same way you would train your dog to sit. The dog associates a sound, or something visual with a meaning or action. That is all that is happening here. You are getting all worked up over nothing. Nobody said this dog has a complex understanding of speech and language. But the dog does certainly know that each of those sounds has a different result, and she is capable of using them to communicate and get what she wants, as we can see through hundreds of videos. Go be miserable somewhere else.
This seems useless. Dogs already communicate. People in the comments are going crazy, saying "it may not be language, but its communication!" So what? Dogs have communicated with humans for a long time now. Its the co-evolution between dogs and humans that makes it possible for dogs to understand us and vice versa. I dont think theres much gain from conditioning a dog to use language buttons.
In one video, she told her owner that she had a paw stranger. She put her paw in her owner's hand. She had a foxtail in her paw. Even if the only thing they could do with it was convey when they are in pain and where, it would be worth it