Dr. Alliston Reid describes the story behind the exciting research that demonstrates that dogs, like children, can learn that certain words represent individual objects, and other words represent categories of objects, independent in meaning of what they are asked to do with those objects. Newspapers, magazine articles, and radio television programs describing their research have appeared in over 46 languages and on every continent. Dr. Reid will talk about the publicity, as well as the rigorous science underlying the story, which was published in Behavioural Processes with the following title and abstract:Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referentsFour experiments investigated the ability of a border collie (Chaser) to acquire receptive language skills. Experiment 1 demonstrated that Chaser learned and retained, over a 3-year period of intensive training, the proper-noun names of 1022 objects. Experiment 2 presented random pair-wise combinations of three commands and three names, and demonstrated that she understood the separate meanings of proper-noun names and commands. Chaser understood that names refer to objects, independent of the behavior directed toward those objects. Experiment 3 demonstrated Chaser's ability to learn three common nouns - words that represent categories. Chaser demonstrated one-to-many (common noun) and many-to-one (multiple-name) name-object mappings. Experiment 4 demonstrated Chaser's ability to learn words by inferential reasoning by exclusion - inferring the name of an object based on its novelty among familiar objects that already had names. Together, these studies indicate that Chaser acquired referential understanding of nouns, an ability normally attributed to children, which included: (a) awareness that words may refer to objects, (b) awareness of verbal cues that map words upon the object referent, and (c) awareness that names may refer to unique objects or categories of objects, independent of t

Sponsor:Etraining for Dogs
Speaker(s):Dr. Alliston K. Reid, Wofford College ( Moderator: Monique Udell, PhD)

Contact: Cheryl Asmus
 Email: cheryl@e-trainingfordogs.com
 Phone: 970-231-9965
 Web: http://www.e-trainingfordogs.com/2011/03/ethology-and-canine-behaviour-series/