For anyone who has shared their life with a dogthe question is inevitable: what is he thinking? For centuries, we have interpreted their barking, whining and tail wagging as their own language. However, a growing field of scientific research is taking that question a step further, exploring whether dogs could somehow “talk” to us using words.
The experiment: sound boards to communicate
The basis of this research is not to teach dogs to vocalize human words, a biological impossibility, but to give them the tools to use our vocabulary. The method is to use boards or mats with large buttons. Each button is programmed to play a specific word when pressed, such as “ride,” “food,” “play,” or “outside.”
The process begins simply, teaching the dog to associate an action with a word. For example, every time the dog is going to be taken for a walk, the owner presses the “walk” button. Over time, the dog learns to press the button on its own to request the action. Cases like that of Bunnya sheepadoodle dog who has become an internet celebrity for her use of a board with dozens of buttons, have massively popularized this idea.
The big question: real language or a clever trick?
This is where science comes in to separate anecdote from evidence. The central debate is whether dogs actually understand the abstract concept behind the word or whether they have simply learned an advanced form of conditioning, known as operant conditioning. In other words: Does the dog press “walk” because he understands the idea of going outside, or because he has learned that pressing that specific button results in the reward of opening the door for him?
For it to be considered a form of language, Scientists are looking for evidence that dogs can go beyond simple requests. This would include, for example, the ability to combine words to create new meanings. Some owners have reported that their dogs press “water” and “out” to refer to a lake, or that they ask questions by combining an object button with a vocal questioning tone.
A large-scale citizen science project
To find answers, researchers from laboratories such as the Comparative Cognition Lab at the University of California, San Diego, have launched projects such as “They Can Talk”. Instead of studying a few dogs in a lab, they are collecting data from thousands of “citizen scientists” around the world who are teaching their pets to use these buttons.
The objective is to analyze this enormous amount of information to identify patterns of use that cannot be explained by simple chance or conditioning. They look for sequences of buttons that suggest an emergent grammatical structure, however simple, or the use of words to describe past events or express emotions.
Although the scientific community remains cautious and the final verdict is still far away, research is already changing our perception of canine cognition. Whether or not it is a form of speech, these experiments offer us an unprecedented window into the minds of our four-legged companions, demonstrating that their inner world could be much more complex than we ever imagined.
*This content was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence*