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What Makes Some Dogs GENIUS Word Learners

Scientists have discovered that some exceptionally skilled dogs called gifted word learners can quickly remember the names of toys, and new research reveals the key factor behind their unusual ability isn’t about curiosity but about their relationship with humans. Animal behaviorist Andrea Sommese of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria compared 10 gifted word learners with 21 typical dogs, all border collies, by having each dog play at home with four toys over two weeks where two toy names were repeatedly called by owners and two toys were played with but never named. The team expected the labeled toys to attract more attention from gifted dogs, but all dogs showed a strong preference for new toys with no difference between gifted and typical dogs in how much time they spent with labeled, unlabeled or novel objects. The key distinction emerged not in how dogs explored objects but in how they behaved toward their caregivers, with gifted word learners being significantly more likely to pick up a toy especially a new one and bring it to their caregiver to initiate play.

Typical dogs by contrast tended to stay close or lean against their caregivers without actively involving them in play with the toy, suggesting a difference in social style rather than curiosity according to Sommese who explained that gifted word learners seem particularly motivated to involve humans in object centered interactions involving novel toys. This behavior might mirror early communication attempts in human infants like pointing or showing objects to caregivers to attract attention, shifting the focus away from the objects themselves and toward the relationship between dogs and humans. The study does not claim that social motivation directly causes vocabulary learning since other explanations like differences in owners’ play habits still need to be tested, but the findings open new directions for studying how language related skills can emerge in species that live so closely with humans. Sommese concluded that to understand why some dogs learn words we may need to look less at the toys and more at the relationship, proving that the secret to canine genius might just be how much they want to share their discoveries with the people they love.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/pets-dogs-scientists-reveal-behavior-gifted-word-learners-11453060

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