Scientists say dogs think like babies when learning about toys

By Stephen Beech

Brainy dogs can work out how similar toys work - even when they don’t look alike, reveals new research.

Clever canines can categorize objects by function - just like humans, say scientists.

They explained that, as babies, humans naturally learn new words and their associations - such as the fact that forks are related to bowls because both are used to consume food - through a process known as “label extension”.

It had only been documented in a few so-called language-trained individual animals, after years of intensive training in captivity.

Now a team of animal behavior experts has shown that some dogs can do the same - without any formal training.

In a series of playful interactions with their owners, dogs with a vocabulary of toy names - known as "Gifted Word Learner" (GWL) dogs - were able to extend learned labels to entirely new objects, not because the objects look similar, but because they are used in the same way.

The study showed that the seven dogs - six Border collies and a Blue heeler - could distinguish between toys used for tugging compared to fetching, even when the toys in question didn’t share any obvious physical similarities.

And the dogs could then remember the categorizations for long periods of time- all without previous training.

Study lead author Dr. Claudia Fugazza said: “We discovered that these Gifted Word Learner dogs can extend labels to items that have the same function or that are used in the same way

"It’s like a person calling both a traditional hammer and a rock by the same name.

“The rock and the hammer look physically different, but they can be used for the same function.

“So now it turns out that these dogs can do the same.”

She said the studies took place in the dogs’ natural home environments with their human owners.

At the outset, the dogs spent time getting familiar with verbal labels for two functional groups of objects: pull and fetch.

Their owners used those words with specific toys and played with them accordingly, even though the toys didn’t share any similar physical features.

The dogs were then tested to see if they had learned to connect the functional labels to the correct group of toys before playing with more novel toys in the two distinct categories.

But the second time, the owners didn’t use the “pull” and “fetch” labels for the dogs.

The researchers found that the dogs were able to extend the functional labels they’d learned previously to the new toys based on their experience playing with them.

In the final test, the dogs showed that they could successfully apply the verbal labels to the toys by either pulling or fetching accordingly, even when their owners hadn’t named them.

Dr. Fugazza, of Eötvös Lorand University in Hungary, said: “For these new toys, they’ve never heard the name, but they have played either pull or fetch, and so the dog has to choose which toy was used to play which game.

“This was done in a natural set-up, with no extensive training.

"It's just owners playing for a week with the toys. So, it’s a natural type of interaction.”

The researchers say that the dogs’ ability to connect verbal labels to objects based on their functional classifications and apart from the toys’ physical attributes suggests that they form a "mental representation" of the objects based on their experience with their functions, which they can later recall.

The team said their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, provide insight into the evolution of basic skills related to language and their relationship to other cognitive abilities, including memory.

The researchers say future studies could look at whether dogs that don’t learn object labels may nevertheless have an ability to classify objects based on their functions.

Dr. Fugazza said: “Our results show that these dogs do not just memorise object names.

“They understand the meaning behind those labels well enough to apply them to new, very different-looking toys - by recognising what the toys were for.

”We have shown that dogs learn object labels really fast, and they remember them for a long period, even without rehearsing.

“And I think the way they extend labels also beyond perceptual similarities gives an idea of the breadth of what these labels could be for dogs.”

Co-author Dr. Adam Miklosi added: “This ability shows that classification linked to verbal labels can emerge in non-human, non-linguistic species living in natural settings.

“It opens exciting new avenues for studying how language-related skills may evolve and function beyond our own species.”