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Mark W

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Loved the blog updates recently mark! Some good points in that last update....i was only trying to geta few extra views and that....can't believe you'd hate on me so much :-p

Seriously though. I wanna go to Sam fest next time round. Any guy who lets fireworks off in his = legend. Sam and ballotelli should be pals...

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  • 2 weeks later...

You already know this (cos we bum each other on Facebook) but i was literally gonna put a near identical post on our blog, but then ended up going to work before i got round to it. That's one of the best videos i've seen in ages, awesome stuff.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I wouldn't say they were comprehending the actual meaning of the words, rather than being taught the correct outcome for when they hear words? Training a dog to react to words doesn't mean that it understands what the words actually are, it means it knows from experience what it's supposed to do when it hears that noise. If you were annoyed with a dog for doing something, I'd have thought you could shout pretty much any word at it you wanted, but as long as the tone of your voice and your body language was right it'd understand it was being bad. Similarly, I refuse to believe that simply by getting a parrot to recite lines out of - say - a play that it'd understand the narrative, get the context, etc.

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I get what your saying Mark and yes that is probablty true, however dogs and parrots are capable of abstract perception. For example some dogs have been shown to be able to percieve a picture of an apple as meaning you want them to find a real apple and go and get it, these were not trained actions but abstract perception. As in the dog was not trained to get an apple when the 'apple' card was held up, it did it itself.

Dr Ian Dunbar also gives dogs fairly complex tasks to complete by conversing with them.

For instance he will call a dog, give it a note and tell it to find Jamie (his kid) and give Jamie the note. He does this totally conversationally.

Anyway not trying to hijack the thread, just thought I would point it out for no particular reason.

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For instance he will call a dog, give it a note and tell it to find Jamie (his kid) and give Jamie the note. He does this totally conversationally.

Is that repeatable with any random dog though, or is that more of a series of things the dog's previously been trained/taught? Surely it's got to be taught what a 'Jamie' is to be able to do that, so it's effectively just completing a task? I still don't see that as "understanding words" as in actual comprehension of the meaning rather than an input/output kinda deal.

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Thats how we learn language, through asociation, abstract asociation.

Anyway I can't rememeber the exact details as I read it a long time ago.

Maybe I will find it and be more acurate.

Edit: here is a sorta summary of what I was on about, handily it also mentions parrots in it. I have read the whole report on this particular dog and it is (to me anyway) interesting stuff.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/06/63792

Edited by Matt Vandart
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This was sort of what I was angling at before, albeit it in a shit way :P

Bloom also noted that a child's understanding of language can include abstract concepts.

"When children learn a word such as 'sock,' they do not interpret it as 'bring-the-sock' or 'go-to-the-sock,' and they do not merely associate it with socks," he said.

And yeah, I was trying to keep the door closed on the whole way we learn language/abstract assocation thing 'cos I knew you'd go down that route, but I still don't really see it as being a similar thing in that instance of the dog and me being able to type this to you.

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I can't view that where I am unfortunately but I am well versed in operant conditioning. Thing is with operant conditioning is it doesnt explain anything in this situation because it is how we learn also, so cancells itself out in this circumstance.

The main point is that the dog (S) ia capable of abstract concepts. The program was designed to assess abstract conception so variables were put in to test this itself.

Such as adding a new object to the pile of 1000 objects and adding a new word, the asociation of new word to new object is abstract and unlearned so could not be obtained with operant conditioning in the first instance.

Language is widley accepted to not be the sole possesion of the human species and this is way off topic, sorry.

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