In a previous post, I described how a dog’s barking and gaze alternation towards its owner appear to express meaning. The animal seems to ‘tell’ the human what it wants — an unreachable piece of food — and the human, recognising this, may respond. The situation looks like communication. This scene is a good reduction […]
cognition
On the behaviour of language (5)
Human–dog interactions are a great way to demonstrate what I call the behaviour of language: that is, a fundamental difference between human and nonhuman communication and, consequently, between human and nonhuman cognition. Imagine a situation in which your dog is barking and whining at you (signalling) because it wants an item of food that only […]
On the behaviour of language 3
When someone trains a dog to follow a command, they are actively making the dog respond to signals such as a pointing gesture or a spoken word. As I wrote in my letter, they are establishing a signal–response relationship. This is made easier by dogs’ unusual attentiveness to human signals — a trait far stronger […]