Dog's Verbal Tricks Probe Origin Of Language

Complexity Digest 2004.24 - 03

14-Jun-2004

Dog's Verbal Tricks Probe Origin Of Language, NewScientist

Excerpts: With a "vocabulary" of 200 words, Rico showed exceptional ability in retrieving specific toys when asked to fetch them.

The researchers decided to test whether Rico's ability was based on understanding and if he could learn and remember new words. They placed a new toy among his favourites and asked Rico to fetch it, using the unfamiliar name. The dog nearly always did. This suggests that Rico is using a system called "fast-mapping", which young children use to learn new words by matching new words to new objects.

Source: Dog's Verbal Tricks Probe Origin Of Language
[ http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995101 ], Shaoni Bhattacharya, New Scientist, 04/06/10