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Science

Dog Trained on 200-Word Vocabulary 532

An anonymous reader writes "The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany is reporting in Science Magazine today on an example of successful human to non-human communication: Rico, a collie trained on a vocabulary of 200 words. Their conclusion is that 'brain structures that support this kind of learning are not unique to humans...[Rico has a] retrieval rate comparable to the performance of three-year-old toddlers'. In case you ever wondered if your dog understands what you are saying, Rico 'can learn the names of unfamiliar toys after just one exposure to the new word-toy combination.'"
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Dog Trained on 200-Word Vocabulary

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  • by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @06:59PM (#9409420)
    "Get me a beer you damn dog!"

    I'd buy THAT dog for a Dollar!
  • by lordmoose ( 696738 ) * on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:03PM (#9409443) Journal
    If those damn dogs wanna live in our country, let them learn OUR language.
  • Parrots (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BlueCup ( 753410 )
    I remember watching something on 20/20 or a similar show about a Parrot that had the vocabulary of a 6 year old, and I found it very impressive. But it made me wonder, while some animals have been trained to recognize shapes, and perform actions based on those shapes, does anyone know if it'd be possible to train an animal to read (any type of animal besides of course, humans)

    To me, I think this would be a very important thing, because some people I know define "soul" as the ability to reason. If we cou
  • Max plank? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:03PM (#9409449) Homepage Journal
    Am I missing something, Why is an Evolutionary Anthropology center named after Max Plank? Did Plank do some anthropology on the side, or was someone just smoking some crack?
    • Max Planck (Score:3, Informative)

      by Pius II. ( 525191 )
      Many german research centers are named after Max Planck. Google [google.de] for "Max Planck institute" to find many many other fields Planck didn't do work on.
    • Re:Max plank? (Score:3, Interesting)

      There's actually no rule that you have got to name an institute after a person only if it's field is related to the person.

      It's generally out of respect i suppose
      like we have a Mahatma Gandhi institute of technology/medical sciences/business administration/.* in every city of India

      good to know that even a scientist receives such a respect in germany

      (Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)
  • I got to the article page [astrobio.net] and saw a glossary in the left column-bar and thought, "hrm, this must be the words this dog knows." Then I saw "carbohydrate" when I clicked "C". My bad.
  • If Only... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doc Squidly ( 720087 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:05PM (#9409461)
    ...we could teach our High School students as well.
  • I wonder if it could give Inspector Rex [thefreedictionary.com] a run for his money...

    (although the TV show is Austrian, not German...)
  • by geek ( 5680 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:07PM (#9409476)
    For instance it's no break through that dogs understand commands, seeing eye dogs have been doing this for decades, but does the language used make a difference? For instance I assume these dogs were trained in German, would French, Spanish or something like Arabic work better? Can a "dog langauge" be made that works better for them, perhaps allowing a 400 word vocab or more?

    Last I heard the average human had a vocab of around 2500 words or less. Raising an animals higher could lead to full fledged conversations rather than just an instructional command oriented relationship.
    • by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:17PM (#9409543)
      Last I heard the average human had a vocab of around 2500 words or less.

      From an article that I read on this exact topic (the dog that is) a few days ago it claimed that the average high-schooler graduating has a 60,000 word vocabulary. A quick search on news.google.com found:

      But Lori Markson of the University of California at Berkeley stressed that children develop a diverse and extensive language base. A 5-year-old child knows 7,000 to 8,000 words and what they represent. An average adult knows 60,000 words. Educated adults may know upwards of 100,000 words. Most of these words are learned after a single exposure, said Markson, who collaborated with Bloom on a study of fast-mapping in children.
      • I should have been more specific, 2500 often used vocabulary. I read it when researching Pimsleur:
        http://www.pimsleurapproach.com/learn-g erman.asp

        I'm trying to learn German so thats what I linked to.
      • Well, I posted essentially the same thought as you then - OK, after the fact - gave google a whirl and the estimates actually vary widely.

        Fundamentally, I think it's pretty difficult to measure a person's vocabulary. Do we measure the range of words they use every day, or the range of words they might ever use, the words they understand out of all dictionary words, the words they kind of understand in context but couldn't give a definition for... and so on.

        I think 5,000 might be reasonable for a daily-use
    • Last I heard the average human had a vocab of around 2500 words or less.

      Far too low. It's more like 25,000.
    • Dogs often get trained in German. The reason for this is that the German language sounds a bit more commanding (even I admit that and I'm German myself ;-) and that people don't want to accidentally trigger responses/actions while having a conversation with a friend (at least that's what they tell me here in L.A.). If it comes to training sentences I think that English might serve that purpose a bit better - being a programmer I realize how much easier it is to structure a command in English as opposed to G
    • I still doubt that dogs can understand grammar, since, even though you are telling them to "fetch" "roll over" and "sit", they are merely responding to a very specific noise that you make. You couldn't carry on a conversation with a dog.

      Last I heard the average human had a vocab of around 2500 words or less.
      Like others have said, the number is probably far higher, but certain minimalistic constructed languages are designed to be as complete as possible with very little vocabulary. Many claim to be bel
    • by DwarfGoanna ( 447841 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:37PM (#9409661)
      I'm speculating here, but I would think that the reason human/animal communication has mostly been limited to commands has a lot to do with the traditional and historic relationships between animals and humans. What if we had spent the last few thousand years trying to communicate with domestic animals in other capacities, and bred them accordingly?
      • by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:23PM (#9409875)
        You know, I think you might be on to something here. What if we would have bred them according to intelligence as opposed to preferences for 'shiny fur' or 'pointy ears'? Maybe I'd be playing chess with wuffi by now - and he'd probably beat my butt badly - LOL Seriously - this opens a whole new can of worms! Considering genetic engineering and future advances in related fields - would it be possible to develop super-animals with a certain amount of intelligence and self awareness? some might laugh now, but many of the things we take for granted (like writing this email right now) would have been deemed ridiculous 100 years from now...
    • Last I heard the average human had a vocab of around 2500 words or less.

      Did you think that statement through at all? Dude... there are probably more than 2500 different words in one slashdot page alone, given probability and the fact that English contains over one hundred thousand words - you mean that most of tis is gibberish to the average human?

      Oh, wait...

      (Damn, that must have been the stupidest claim I've ever seen, and I've visited some religious sites now and then).
  • my ex-gf and i had a border collie for over a year. by the end, she (the collie) had a vocabulary of well over 100 words. she knew the difference between the ocean, the lake, and the river. she knew what the "purple squeaky ball" was. her favorite word though was "treat".

    a current friend of mine also has a border collie. he is trained to turn off the tv, shut the tv cabinet door, and turn the lights off when his owner falls asleep at night.

    i think most border collies are smarter than a lot of people i deal with on a daily basis at work.
    • i should also point out that border collies are smart because they aren't standardized by the akc. once a "perfect" version of a dog is picked by the akc, they're inbred to keep the same look and they get stupider and stupider. there is an appropriate simpsons quote about the inbreeding of dogs (specifically, dalmations) but i can't seem to find it..
      • by winwar ( 114053 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:08PM (#9409792)
        Wow, so much ignorance in one post, where to start...

        Border collies are AKC's 139th breed. Because it is a relatively new AKC recognized breed, "AKC will accept accept dogs registered with the American Border Collie Association (ABC), the American International Border Collie (AIBC), and the North American Sheepdog Society (NASD)." (AKC web site) It is currently in open registration (see web site for details-but requires the dog to have a pedigree, submit pictures etc.).

        Some more info: Date entered into Regular Classes: October 1, 1995. The Border Collie was recognized by the AKC for inclusion in the Miscellaneous Class in 1955. (AKC web site)

        If you scroll down a little more on the same page you will note a breed standard. In short, the breed IS ALREADY STANDARDIZED. Any inbreeding is not the fault of the AKC. It is the fault of clueless and/or idiotic and/or greedy owners generally fueled by the desire to make a quick buck of the popularity of a breed (indirectly aided and abetted by an ignorant public-such as you). Inbreeding is a FAULT. Good (ethical) owners/breeders take great pains to avoid inbreeding as it can permanently damage a breed's genetic diversity and introduce genetic disorders that are extremely difficult to overcome (probably what you think you are referring to...)

        • by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:22PM (#9409873) Homepage Journal
          From BorderCollie.org [bordercollie.org]:

          Furthermore, the best, and indeed the only way to fix a set of alleles within a breed is through inbreeding....

          7. The Standard

          The existing Border Collie is not a breed without a standard. It has a very specific standard, by which dogs without registration papers and pedigrees can be Registered on Merit if they can demonstrate their herding ability to satisfy this standard. Whatever appearance standard is designed by the AKC and its chosen Breed Club (should it eventually designate one), it will not be the same standard to which the breed currently strives; it will therefore, by definition and unavoidably not be the same breed of dogs.

          Even though the initial registration will come from the existing breed, the next generation of "showdogs" will have been bred under a different set of selective rules, and will already be at least philosophically different. After three years, when the AKC closes its books and no longer allows dogs of the original breed to be used for breeding, the AKC breed will have become a separate entity, no matter what its name!

          This already happened at least once, when the "Lassie" collie was created. The working sheepdogs used to be called "collies." They became "Border Collies" to distinguish them from the developing show breed. At the time of separation, there was no real distinction; anyone can tell the two breeds apart now.

          All of this is quite apart from the possibility of a standard being chosen which is simply inconsistent with the demands of the shepherding life. This may be in the written standard or in the fashions of judges who know nothing about these physical demands. This has already happened to some of the breeds (Labrador retrievers, for instance, are currently too heavy and short-legged to be of much use in the field; Siberian huskies tend to be showring winners with legs too short to run properly and with fluffy coats that cannot shed snow and ice; bearded collies look nothing like their ancestors, and have coats which obscure their vision, and collect burrs and mud). There has been some call for the USBCC to become the breed club so that we could set the standard and thereby avoid the problems of inappropriate physical traits being used. Unfortunately, although the problem will be made worse by the "wrong" standard, it is the existence of a physical appearance standard, and not its details, that is the danger. The currently proposed standard is flexible enough to appear to cover many of our dogs. In practice, however, an appearance standard, however broad it may seem, will subject the breed to all the problems listed above.

          Although there is a popular belief that a dog that looks like his father (or mother) will work like his father (or mother) this is simply not necessarily true. Because of recombination of genes, it is no more likely that the pup with his father's markings is going to behave more like his father than the pup with completely different markings. If we were to set the show standard to duplicate in every detail the appearance of the latest International Supreme Champion, this would no more guarantee us a working breed than any other conformation standard. If we don't choose the pups that work like the latest Champion, we are not selecting the right genetic blend from the many possible combinations.

          8. What Is A Breed?

          As was stated in the USBCC Spring Newsletter:

          "To a geneticist, a breed is simply this: a population of animals whose breeding is controlled and outcrossing limited, so that genetic selection can be exercised on it. . . . A population is simply a subgroup of the whole species of dog, Canis familiaris. Controlled breeding and limited outcrossing make it possible to select . . . for whatever genetic traits the organized breeders decide on. Organized breeders is almost a necessary part of the definition; one breeder cannot produce enough dogs to truly create a breed, and a lot of breed

    • It's a good thing your ex was able to occupy it like that. I used to have one of those things. By the time we had to get rid of it (We gave him to a sheep farm, where he's happily herding sheep now), he had learned how to open doors, how to bypass the invisible fence, and how to open the cupboard with his food in it. We also suspected he was working on his MSCE on the side (He kept on ripping apart boxes of Microsoft products we put on the book shelves...I wish I was making that up)
    • A number of breeds have reputations for intelligence, and the border collie is certainly one. Others I'm aware of are Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, standard French poodle. An Australian shepherd is said to be almost uncanny in its intelligence.
  • And improve on the dog translator [takara-usa.com]
    As a side note, has anyone ever actually tried this thing out?
  • The article comes as no big surprise to anyone who has lived with a Border Collie. They are definitely smart dogs, and can understand what you're saying to them. And better than a three year-old child, they'll actually do what you tell them to do.
  • by teutonic_leech ( 596265 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:14PM (#9409528)
    I just saw something on Deutsche Welle (in Los Angeles actually) and that dog indeed picked out a bunch of items among dozens littered across the floor on verbal request. What's interesting is that the canine still used his nose (not his eyes) to identify the object. Looks like his brain is correlating verbal commands with smells - contrary to how human beings would solve this problem.
    Anyway, I never bought into that whole 'humans are unique' bullcrap - countless reports have proven that several species elicit signs of abstract thinking, verbal communication (whales, dolphins in particular), emotions like sadness (chimpanzees and other primates), anger, tendency for rape (chimpanzees again - why am I not surprised? LOL), etc.. Why are we still so full of ourselves and continue to describe ourselves as the crown of evolution while we decimate other species and commit atrocities unknown to any other species on this planet. I hope this dog doesn't smarten up too much - once he realizes how screwed up his 'masters' are - he's probably reconsidering that whole loyalty issue ;-)
  • "Your uncle molests collies".

    But little did you know until now that they really understand your cries of 'you like that, don't you bitch'.

    ed
  • by Anonymous Coward
    In captivity have been trained to understand 400-600 or more signals, and even the meaning of putting two signals together to alter the action..

  • by burtonator ( 70115 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:18PM (#9409546)
    I'm not sure if anyone out there has every worked with a Collie before. They're really amazing.

    The difference here is that they are HIGHLY motivated. I think we could learn a lot from this lesson.

    Collies are able to have such an impact on our lives because they really really REALLY want to make us happy.

    I've always wanted to own one but they are a LOT of work. It's almost a full time job. If you don't have work for them they will just go insane. Better to keep them on a farm...

  • MS Dog (Score:3, Funny)

    by Decaff ( 42676 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:20PM (#9409555)
    Dyslexically, I read that as 'Dog Trained on Word 200...'

    A cut-down version for non-humans?
  • Does he want steak? (any fark.com readers out there?)
  • the brain's plans of world domination come true???

    (Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)
  • by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:23PM (#9409575) Homepage
    Bark
    Rough
    Bow Wow
    Grrrr
    Whimper
    Whine
    Howl
    Roof
  • Koko (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Edward Teach ( 11577 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:23PM (#9409576)
    This seems more impressive.
    koko.org [koko.org]
  • by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:32PM (#9409627) Journal
    Here is an example conversation:

    Me: "What's on top of the house?"

    Dog: "Roof!"

    Me: "Who's the most famous baseball player?"

    Dog: "Ruth!"

    Me: "How does sand-paper feel?"

    Dog: "Rough!"

    3 out 3!
  • by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:37PM (#9409656)
    Rico knows 200 words? That's a heck of a lot more words that George W Bush knows.
  • This is bullshit (Score:4, Informative)

    by jjhlk ( 678725 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:46PM (#9409706) Homepage
    This is bullshit, according to Geoffrey Pullum, professor of linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

    Screw paraphrasing: " The trained object-fetching behavior of Rico, the border collie that this German research is talking about, has nothing at all to do with understanding language. The behavior is comparable to what you would have shown if you demonstrated that you had trained your goldfish to swim to a given object in its tank when you showed it a card with a given letter of the Greek alphabet. By all means attempt that too, if you think it would be interesting science. But don't bring it to me for my approval under a headline saying Research Shows Goldfish Can Read Greek, that's all! Unless you actually enjoy seeing the veins standing out in my neck as I hurl some more defenseless chairs and coffee tables and goldfish tanks around the room. "

    His post is available here [upenn.edu]. And for those geeks interested in language, check out the Language Log [languagelog.com].
    • by Estanislao Martínez ( 203477 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:54PM (#9410082) Homepage
      The study is clearly aimed at arguing that the process psycholinguists call lexical access (which laypeople would probably call "remembering words") does not require innate structure specific to the human species.

      In fact, if you know just a bit about contemporary research in child language you can pick up the hints in the AP article Pullum links about how it ties in:

      The dog seemingly understood that because he knew the names of all the other toys, the new one must be the one with the unfamiliar name. "Apparently he was able to link the novel word to the novel item based on exclusion learning, either because he knew that the familiar items already had names or because they were not novel," said the researchers, led by Julia Fischer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
      This is reminiscent of some of the work of Eve Clark-- which Geoff can't be excused not to know.
  • by michaeldot ( 751590 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @07:57PM (#9409743)
    public void fetch(Object what)
    {
    if (what == newspaper)
    newspaper.ripToShreds();
    else
    what.drenchWithDrool();
    }

    public void annoyNeighbour(int nightsPerWeek)
    {
    if ( nightsPerWeek < 7 )
    nightsPerWeek = 7;

    self.bark();
    self.scratchFence();
    self.rattleGate();
    self.bark();
    }

    public void walkOnFootpath(Boolean leashed)
    {
    if ( ! leashed)
    self.chaseChildren();

    self.crap();
    }

    (In case you hadn't noticed, I don't like dogs much! Fido can take his 200 word vocabulary and go play in the traffic.)
  • by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @08:10PM (#9409805)
    How many of you dog owners have to spell words like "ride", "walk" or "out" lest your canine go flippin' nuts?

    Come on, be honest.

    We all know a cat would just sit there.
  • by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Saturday June 12, 2004 @09:13PM (#9410234)
    Welcome our new canine over...

    No, wait, I just can't wrap my head around that one. Come back to me when they figure out what side of the door they want to be on.

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