62% of people claim that their pets understand
what they say. Whether or not animals can hear, recognise
and possibly even understand what humans say, has always been a profound mystery. Recent evidence attempts to reveal, once and
for all, whether Tony the terrier knows the difference between “good boy” and “Tony,
did you chew my slippers?” Dogs may respond to these sentences, but do
dogs and other animals actually understand the meaning behind those sentences? Or are they just well-trained? You may be very surprised by what you’re
about to discover about animal perception. In 1984, researchers at the National Marine
Mammal Foundation in California noticed something quite unusual. They claimed that they heard voices of people
talking around an enclosure where they kept a Beluga whale named NOC. They were fairly certain it wasn’t anything
paranormal, after all the voices sounded so… real. Eventually a diver was in NOC’s tank and
he noticed the strangest thing. NOC, the Beluga whale, was talking to him,
in an eerily human-like voice. Incredibly, the whale reportedly told the
diver to “get out”. This is an actual recording of NOC imitating
human speech. Kinda sounds like a human talking through
a kazoo, doesn’t it? That’s because unlike humans who use their
larynx, whales use their nasal tract to produce sounds, making everything sound all nasally. It’s believed that NOC, having lived most
of his life in close proximity to humans, learnt to mimic the human voice. But the real question is, was NOC merely repeating
noises he picked up from humans, or did he actually understand the meaning behind what
he was saying? Asian elephants, seals and parrots have also
been known to imitate human speech, but do they understand what they are saying? And do they understand what we say to them? In 1891 a German high school mathematics teacher
named Wilhelm Von Osten convinced himself that animals could be taught basic mathematics. He tried to teach maths to a cat, a horse
and a bear. The cat couldn’t care less and was only
interested in itself, the bear was just downright hostile towards him but the horse showed great
promise. After extensive tutelage, the horse, named
Hans, learnt to tap his hoof in response to numbers Von Osten wrote on his blackboard. If Von Osten wrote the number two, Hans would
tap his hoof twice, if he wrote four, Hans would tap four times, and so on. Spurred on by this success, Von Osten proceeded
to teach Hans to answer basic mathematical equations. Von Osten would write on the blackboard “2
+ 2 =” and Hans would tap his hoof four times. Von Osten was delighted and exhibited Hans
to the public all over Germany. During these shows, which Von Osten never
charged admission for, the crowd were awe-stricken as Hans correctly answered an array of basic
maths equations by using his hoof to tap out the answers. Hans could add, subtract, multiply, divide
and even work out the square root of a number. Hans would correctly answer around 89% of
the questions. The news of “Hans the genius horse” rapidly
spread across Germany. But along with Hans’ fame came critics and
skeptics. A psychologist, Oskar Pfungst asked to do
some experiments with Hans, to which Von Osten agreed. Oskar Pfungst erected a large tent to perform
the experiments in, to eradicate the possibility of Hans being influenced by outside stimuli. As a control test, Pfungst asked Von Osten
to step inside the tent and ask Hans mathematical questions like he usually does. As expected, Hans got most of the questions
correct. However, Pfungst then asked Von Osten to move
a little farther away from Hans whilst he asked the questions and subsequently, Hans
got far fewer answers correct. Finally, Pfungst told Von Osten to ask Hans
questions that he knew Von Osten did not know the answer to. When Von Osten asked these questions, the
accuracy of Hans’ answers fell to almost zero. It appeared that in order for Hans to get
the answer correct, the person asking the question, had to know the answer to the question
also. These results were very strange, but incredibly
interesting, so Pfungst investigated further. He observed Von Osten’s facial expressions
and posture whilst he was asking the questions. Pfungst noticed Von Osten’s facial expression
and posture change, right after he asked a question. His face and posture would tense up in expectation
of Hans’ answer. However, each time Hans tapped his hoof and
got closer to the correct answer, Von Osten would relax slightly and his posture, expressions
and mannerisms would change. As soon as Hans tapped his hoof enough times
so that he had reached the correct answer, Von Osten’s posture and expressions would
relax and become happier, because he was relieved that Hans had seemingly arrived at the correct
answer, all by himself. It transpired that the horse was receiving
small visual clues that acted as feedback. The horse would start tapping as soon as he
observed Von Osten asking the question and then tensing up. When the tension had alleviated from Von Osten’s
face, Hans would stop tapping his hoof. Hans was never actually doing any mathematics;
he was simply well attuned to his owner’s visual clues. Von Osten was shocked at this revelation,
because he was completely unaware that he was providing Hans with these unconscious
visual clues. He genuinely thought his horse was a genius. The results of Pfungst’s experiment had
enormous effects on how all scientific experiments would be carried out in the future. This phenomenon came to be known as “The
Clever Hans Effect”. The Clever Hans Effect, as we know it today,
is when an experimenter unwittingly alters the results of an experiment, simply because
he or she is expecting a certain result. The simple expectation for something to happen,
can have huge consequences on an experiment’s results, without the experimenter even realising
it. These days, necessary measures are taken when
working with both animals and humans to prevent the Clever Hans effect from altering the results
of experiments. A border collie named Rico came into the spotlight
in 2004 after being intensively studied by animal psychologists from the Max Planck Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. The researchers showed such a great interest
in Rico because his owners reported that he could understand over 200 words. A feat previously unheard of in the canine
kingdom. To test whether Rico’s skills were a bunch
of fluff or a truly bone-a-fide talent, the researchers set up an experiment. The researchers arranged 200 toys on the floor
in a room adjacent to were Rico was being held, they did this ten toys at a time. Each toy had a unique name, such as “fluffy”
or “squeezy”; Rico’s owner had already trained him to remember the name of each toy. Each time the researchers let Rico into the
room with the toys and asked Rico to fetch a toy, then another toy and another. Until Rico had fetched all 10 toys. Whilst the researchers were issuing commands
to Rico, they stayed on the other side of a dividing wall, where Rico could hear them
but not see them, to eliminate the Clever Hans effect. In total, Rico successfully remembered and
retrieved 93% of the toys. Impressive, but this was only a test of Rico’s
memory, not his cognitive function – ie. his ability to use logic and inference, just
like a human. So the researchers did a second experiment. They arranged seven items in the room with
an eight item which was brand new, which they gave a unique name to. Rico had never seen or heard the name of this
new item before. Amazingly when Rico was let into the room
and asked to fetch the new item, he was very quickly able to infer which was the new toy
and fetched it straight away. Rico seemingly used a process of deduction
and elimination. This is called “fast mapping”, a process
where one is able to quickly learn a new concept after a single exposure to brand new information. Human toddlers do this all the time, it’s
how they learn. Even more amazingly Rico was able to fetch
the new toys again, four weeks later, having only seen them once. Out of the six new items that Rico was shown,
four weeks prior, he remembered three of them, four weeks later. Interestingly three out of six is the same
rate at which adult humans are able to remember things that they saw four weeks ago. Chaser is another border collie who can reportedly
remember the name of 1,000 toys and can retrieve each one of them, just like Rico. But Chaser has another unique talent. She is able to recognise verbs. From a young age Chaser’s owner, a retired
psychologist, trained Chaser to understand and utilise three verbs: nose, paw and fetch. When Chaser’s owner says “paw slinky”,
Chaser will go over to the toy named slinky and put her paw on it. Similarly, if “nose slinky” is said, Chaser
will put her nose on the slinky toy and when “fetch slinky” is said, Chaser will fetch
the toy. Chaser’s owner is able to swap the verb
and the name of the toy for any one of 1,000 different toys and Chaser will go over to
the correct toy and do the correct action almost one hundred percent of the time. That’s about the same cognitive ability
as a three-year-old human child. This also demonstrates something astonishing. Chaser doesn’t simply remember each and
every command, it’s not just a cheap memory trick. Chaser’s brain is actually using cognitive
function to determine what to do in each given situation. This is no different to how a human brain
works. Although this is rather basic stuff for an
adult human. It’s an amazing display of cognitive ability
and logical inference for an animal. It demonstrates that dogs understand what
we say, provided they are given the opportunity to learn these human-like concepts as a puppy. But that’s not different from a human, human’s
have to learn this stuff too, we aren’t born knowing what “go get daddy a beer”
means. As a baby we learn the individual words that
construct that sentence and then as a toddler, we use our brain’s cognitive ability, especially
our fast mapping ability, to know what we should do when those words are arranged into
that sentence. Just like Chaser is doing. Dog’s aren’t able to learn as fast or
to the same extent as humans, so realistically their ability is capped compared to a human. However, provided they are given the correct
education and training from an early age, dogs most definitely can understand at least
a small percentage of what you say to them. So when you say “time for ‘walkies’”
and your dog goes freaking mental. It may not just be because they have associated
the word “walkies” with running about outside with their beloved owner; there’s
actually some very basic level of understanding there. But don’t think you can go and have full-blown,
esoteric conversations with your canine buddy. They may understand the odd word or two, but
first and foremost, dogs use smell, to communicate and differentiate between objects and people. They’re going to understand a lot more of
what you’re trying to communicate to then, if you roll around in the garden for ten minutes
then let them sniff you, than if you try to explain to them why you had such a bad day
at work. But so far we’ve only talked about dogs,
horses and whales, what about other animals? After all the spectrum of animal cognition
spans the entire animal kingdom. Take Koko the gorilla for example. Koko is a female gorilla who has learnt a
modified version of American Sign Language. Koko was taught from an early age and now,
she can reportedly understand and use 1,000 different signs of what her trainer calls
“Gorilla Sign Language” and she understands over 2,000 words of spoken English. Naturally Koko has been the subject of numerous
scientific studies, articles and books. But whether or not Koko actually understands
sign language in the same way a human does, is a topic of hot debate. Some researchers argue that Koko hasn’t
actually mastered sign language at all and she doesn’t understand the words she is
signing. They insist that Koko’s human-like sign
language abilities are a result of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is when someone learns
to do something because there’s a reward at the end of it. For example, if you showed a toddler three
different coloured boxes, blue, green and red and placed a sweet in the green box - the
toddler would then learn to always open the green box in the future, in order to get the
sweet. Koko may have simply learnt to make certain
shapes and signs with her hands because she is rewarded for doing so. Video evidence showed that Koko was also being
influenced by the Clever Hans effect. Her trainers were giving her unconscious facial
clues to prompt her to make certain gestures with her hands. Despite all this, Koko’s trainers are adamant
that there’s more going on in Koko’s head than researchers give her credit for. One piece of evidence which suggests a greater
level of cognition in Koko’s brain, occurred when Koko’s baby was taken away from her. The day after her baby was removed, she reportedly
signed the word “baby” to her keeper. This is known as displacement, the ability
to talk about objects that are not currently present in the room and it’s something that
we thought was unique to humans and it’s very rarely observed in the animal kingdom. Also, Koko has been known to talk about new
objects that she hasn’t even been taught how to sign. For example, Koko has never been taught the
sign language for the the word “ring”. But Koko combined the signs for “finger”
and “bracelet” to refer to a ring. If you think about it, a ring is just a tiny
bracelet for your finger, that’s pretty smart going Koko. Events such as this suggest that Koko has
a higher level of understanding of the words she is actually signing. But there’s a dark side that comes with
so much gorilla intelligence. Koko enjoys seeing human nipples and she often
asks her female caregivers using sign language, to show her their nipples. This unusual behavior actually resulted in
a sexual harassment lawsuit by one of Koko’s female caregivers in 2005. Maybe it’s not such a good idea we try to
communicate with animals. Dolphins are often said to be one of the smartest
animals in the world and they certainly proved it in a 1984 study. Two bottlenose dolphins were taught human
language. The first dolphin named Phoenix was taught
how to comprehend human speech. The second dolphin, Akeakamai, was taught
a form of sign language. Both dolphins were taught a large variety
of words, such as object names, actions and object modifiers. All of which could be combined and rearranged
into hundreds of unique sentences to form a command. For example, “swim to the blue ring” or
“pick up the red ring”. The commands were given to the dolphins using
computed generated voices and videos, to prevent the Clever Hans effect. Both dolphins were able to comprehend and
execute the given commands at a much higher success rate than what would be considered
chance. Understanding words and simple one-word commands
is one thing. But for an animal to understand complex three-to-five
word commands and accurately follow them, is quite simply, astonishing. Experiments such as these prove that many
animals have an unprecedented level of understanding of human speech and communication. Up to now we’ve only explored a minute fraction
of intellect within the animal kingdom, who knows what some animals are really capable
of. A real life planet of the apes may be just
around the corner. But until then you should probably watch what
you’re saying around your pets. They may be listening a bit more attentively
than you think.
