Gifted Dogs Generalize Words to Items With the Same Function

"Dogs are amazing intelligent and emotional beings, and I'm always looking for new research that aims to extend what we know in these areas. I recently learned of such a study titled "Dogs Extend Verbal Labels for Functional Classification of Objects" by dog experts Drs. Claudia Fugazza, Andrea Sommese, and Ádam Miklosi, and I'm pleased that Claudia could answer a few questions about this seminal work. 1 Here's what she had to say."

"Marc Bekoff: Why did you and your colleagues conduct this research? Claudia Fugazza: We wanted to explore whether gifted word learner dogs -dogs who can learn the names of dozens or even hundreds of toys-are capable of extending words beyond specific objects to broader categories. In human children, this ability plays a central role in vocabulary growth. Our study tested whether dogs can do something similar: generalizing a word not just to objects that look alike, but also to those that share the same function."

"MB: How does this study relate to your backgrounds and general areas of interest? CF: My work has long focused on how dogs learn from humans, especially through social interactions. I'm particularly interested in the processes that support vocabulary learning in gifted word learner dogs and what vocabulary acquisition implies in a non-human, non-linguistic species. This study builds directly on our previous findings about gifted word learner dogs."

Gifted word-learning dogs can generalize verbal labels beyond specific objects to broader categories defined by function as well as perceptual similarity. Dogs that learn names of dozens or hundreds of toys can map words to objects that share how they are used, suggesting vocabulary growth mechanisms that resemble aspects of human categorization. Observations occurred in natural family settings, emphasizing social learning and attentiveness. Findings imply notable cognitive flexibility in dogs and offer comparative insight into how word learning and categorization abilities may have evolved across species.

Read at Psychology Today