Findings indicate dogs and humans employ different learning methods

Research published in the PLOS ONE journal, by Emile van der Zee and colleagues from the University of Lincoln, has revealed that dogs learn to associate words with objects in different ways to humans.

Findings from previous studies show that humans between the ages of two and three typically learn to associate words with the shapes of objects, rather than their size or texture.

For example, if a toddler has previously learnt what a ball is, and is then presented with other objects of similar shapes, sizes and textures, the child will identify a similarly-shaped object as a ball, rather than those of the same texture or size.

However, research with dogs has shown they are able to learn to associate words with categories of objects - such as a toy - but whether their learning process is the same as that of humans was previously unknown.

The new study involved Gable, a five-year-old border collie. Gable was presented with similar choices to see if he used shapes to identify an object.

After a brief training period, scientists found that Gable learned to associate the name of an object with its size, identifying other objects of similar size by the same name. After a longer period of exposure to both a name and an object, the dog learned to associate a word to other objects of similar textures, but not to objects of similar shape.

According to these results, the scientists suggest that dogs process and associate words with objects in different ways to humans, and that this may be due to differences in how evolutionary history has shaped human and dog senses of perceiving shape, texture or size.