What Do Dogs Know When Talked to?

choi

本文通过一路BBS站telnet客户端发布


Nicholas Wade, Sit. Stay. Parse. Good Girl!
New York Times (NYT), Jan 18, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18dog.html?scp=1&sq=dog%20proper&st=Search

My comment:
(a) Border Collie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Collie
(The name for the breed came from its probable place of origin along the Scottish English borders)

* collie (n; probably from English dialect colly black)
www.m-w.com
(b) The citation of the research article is

Pilley J and Reid A, Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents. Behavioural Processes, _: _ (2011).
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T2J-51N7RRD-1&_user=2403224&_coverDate=12%2F08%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000057194&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=2403224&md5=42ad91bb6fcccb94f88c6a7db018bb4a&searchtype=a
(c) The NYT report states, "The 1,022 words in Chaser’s vocabulary are all proper nouns."

What it means is that a ball is called John, another ball Mary and a bat New York.

Besides proper names, researchers find the dog knows common names (categories; such as John and Mary are "balls") and (a few) verbs.
(d) I am always amused that owner of a dog talks to it as if it was a baby. I know a dog can not comprehend complicated things. But I am frequently amazed that a dog seems to obey some commands. A dog may not be able to make out the meaning of "Don't even think about it," but it might know from the tone that the owner is upset. This experiment presents qualities and quantities to my guess.
--