Dataset Information

Acquisition and long-term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs.

ABSTRACT: Dogs with a vocabulary of object names are rare and are considered uniquely gifted. In a few cases, these Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs have presented cognitive skills that are functionally similar to those of human infants. However, the acquisition rate of new object names and the ability of GWL dogs to form long-term memories of those is unknown. In this study, we examine the ability of six GWL dogs to acquire the names of new objects in a short period and to retain those in their long-term memory without post-acquisition exposures. In Experiments 1 and 2, the dogs were tested on their ability to learn, during social interactions with their owners, the names of 6 and 12 new toys respectively, in one week. In Experiments 3 and 4, the dogs' memory of these objects was tested after one and two months. GWL dogs typically learned the names of the new objects and remembered those. We suggest that dogs with knowledge of object names could be a powerful model for studying mental mechanisms related to word acquisition in a non-human species.

SUBMITTER: Dror S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8493188 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Acquisition and long-term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs.

Dror Shany S Miklósi Ádám Á Sommese Andrea A Temesi Andrea A Fugazza Claudia C

Royal Society open science 20211006 10

Dogs with a vocabulary of object names are rare and are considered uniquely gifted. In a few cases, these Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs have presented cognitive skills that are functionally similar to those of human infants. However, the acquisition rate of new object names and the ability of GWL dogs to form long-term memories of those is unknown. In this study, we examine the ability of six GWL dogs to acquire the names of new objects in a short period and to retain those in their long-term m ...[more]

PMID: 34754502

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Project description:Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children's and adults' word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., "Look, a Tanu") and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants' target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development.

Dataset Information

Acquisition and long-term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs.

Publications

Acquisition and long-term memory of object names in a sample of Gifted Word Learner dogs.

Similar Datasets

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