[HN Gopher] Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seei...
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Dogs can remember names of toys years after not seeing them, study
shows
Author : pseudolus
Score : 142 points
Date : 2024-09-04 01:27 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| At work I often learned the full names and other details about
| dozens of coworkers, customers, whatever, even if I didn't need
| to know.
|
| A few years after leaving wherever, I begin to forget even the
| simplest names, and I consider this as a blessing, as if Agent K
| set the flashy-thing in my eyes and I've returned to an ordinary
| life.
| dboreham wrote:
| For me typically some attribute remains in memory after the
| name fades: "white-teeth marketing dude" or "guy obsessed with
| keyboards". I suppose that's how names started: Miller,
| Shepard, etc. As a corollary to this if I'm going into a
| business situation where I think it would be useful to be
| remembered, I'll try to wear something notable -- brightly
| colored shoes, something like that. Imagining the other parties
| discussing "that bloke, what was his name?? who? Um, the one
| with the orange shoes. Oh yes".
| card_zero wrote:
| Nathan Whitetoothdouche, Jeff Analkeyboards. But isn't the
| orange shoes thing a classic spy tactic to get people to
| ignore your face? Now _all_ they remember about you is your
| shoes. Wear different ones another time, and you 're a
| stranger.
| bitwize wrote:
| I once interviewed for a job with a small group of people,
| all at once. To keep them all straight in my head before I
| learned their names I gave each a mental nickname based on
| their appearance: Red Hair, Taller Than My Dad, Jack Sparrow
| (he had hollow cheeks and a dark unkempt beard).
|
| Taller Than My Dad turned out to be comp.lang.c FAQ
| maintainer, Steve Summit.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Did you rename you Dad to half-way-to-Summit?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Official family names like Miller etc are a quite modern
| phenomenon for the majority of people, an aspect of a more
| formal and powerful state apparatus.
|
| Traditional names are the first names, and these have been
| less direct for a very long time. First names are assigned in
| childhood and used for most of your life, so they are rarely
| related to your occupation. Much of Europe, America, and the
| Middle East of course use mostly the names of religious
| figures, but even in societies that didn't adopt foreign
| names, given names are typically words that evoke some
| positive aspiration, such as well liked/respected animals or
| plants.
|
| Of course, sometimes people would be known by other names as
| well.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Four-and-a-half years ago I started a new job and used Anki to
| learn all the names and faces of my ~100 coworkers, thankfully
| we had some internal directory that I did use as a data source.
| It worked great! Then the pandemic hit... I left the company
| three years ago and now could remember maybe five names if I
| met them.
| pnut wrote:
| One of the guiding principles in my household is that people
| will generally forgive, but they will never forget the way you
| made them feel.
| nanna wrote:
| My parents dog tends to not eat his food unless they start
| pretending that his friend poppy, who died years ago and who used
| to love eating his food, is at the door. He panics and eats up
| his bowl, lifting his head up anxiously to look at the door every
| few mouthfuls.
| sova wrote:
| Poppy's here!
| bongodongobob wrote:
| That's kind of fucked up. They're reinforcing the fact that he
| should be worried about his food. They're training him to be
| anxious. If he doesn't want to eat, there's no reason to make
| him. He'll eat when he's hungry.
| dboreham wrote:
| Perhaps once it's in the model, it's so hard to re-train that
| the animal will starve itself in service of the training
| data?
| morkalork wrote:
| I'm pretty sure if you leave a dog alone with a bowl of
| food long enough, they'll eat it.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| natural selection i think overrides that idea, but i also
| thought the same idea at first, and we have 5 rescues, so i
| should know better.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I don't disagree, especially if they do that every day.
|
| There are some times when as humans, we have knowledge that
| the dog needs to eat now, because they won't have a chance
| later, for example if going on some trip with the dog where
| feeding later would be inconvenient. In those cases it's
| useful to have this trick available.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Or, you just skip a meal. Dog won't die from being hungry.
| nutrie wrote:
| Dogs aren't exactly wild animals. They've picked up lots of
| bad habits along the way, due to selective breeding, not
| having to hunt for food, and whatnot. I used to have a
| caucasian shepherd, among other dogs we've had in our family,
| and as she started aging, it had become gradually quite
| difficult to keep her weight in check. "Forcing" her eat less
| and more frequently did the trick. She had hip dysplasia, so
| it was either this or put her to sleep. She got used to it
| eventually. Some dogs tend to overeat (apparently labradors
| have a problem here, some boxers too, from top of my head),
| some don't. Letting them choose may or may not be the right
| strategy. The owner should be smart and responsible enough to
| figure it out. But that's a different issue altogether.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| All your examples were about dogs overeating, which I don't
| think anyone would disagree dogs can do. But I think it's
| pretty rare for dogs to _under_ eat and to need to trick
| them into eating their food.
| nutrie wrote:
| It's not uncommon at all. Take toothache, for example.
| The catch is they can't tell you, and we are terrible at
| reading the subtle signs.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Some dogs can communicate such things. Bunny (of _What
| About Bunny_ ) can vaguely, imprecisely, communicate
| "some kind of pain somewhere" using a button-activated
| buzzer system. She can sometimes name the approximate
| location of the pain after a minute or two of thought.
| (See
| https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=RN_ZpyS6Fkc&t=34 )
|
| I have _no idea_ how you 'd get "I'm in pain" from the
| associated body language; but, then again, I'm not a dog.
| In this case there were behavioural cues, but I don't
| know how I'd tell if there weren't.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| My dog (who recently passed away at the age of 13) used to do
| something similar. When she was a puppy, she spilled her food
| bowl and I swept it up with a broom. And since then, whenever
| we wanted her to eat her food, we'd just bring out the broom
| and start sweeping the kitchen floor - she'd immediately start
| eating her food, watching the broom nervously, because she's
| seen it eat her food before.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| It's not too surprising as they (in movies and also my dog)
| respond well after years to just the call of names of people they
| had a deeper relationship with. So if we associate the name of a
| toy, eg. "go get the penguin" and they played with it for long
| period of time, it makes sense that they form a relationship with
| the toy as well and had memories of it. Dogs dream (I imagine the
| noise and movements they make while sleeping are dreams), and I
| won't doubt they dream about owners playing with them and calling
| out the toy's name and thus reinforcing the name in their
| memories.
| petepete wrote:
| I've had my Labrador for 12 years, she was about 1 when we
| rescued her.
|
| In the first week I was walking her and passed a bus stop mainly
| used by school kids. There's a small wall behind it and she
| dashed around and emerged with half a sausage roll hanging out of
| her mouth.
|
| To this day, every time we pass that spot she enthusiastically
| pulls and goes round to inspect.
| fracus wrote:
| That poor dog will be perpetually disappointed. You should hide
| some sausage there every once in a while before your walks.
| mikestew wrote:
| Reminds me of the search and rescue dogs used for finding
| people in collapsed buildings after, say, an earthquake.
| Apparently the dogs get depressed after finding nothing but
| dead people, so the humans seed the rubble once in a while
| with a live human for the dogs to find.
|
| https://allcreatureslargeandsmall.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/t.
| ..
|
| "As time passes without survivors found, search-and-rescue
| dogs -- especially those trained to find living people --
| experience increased stress and depression. One way this is
| mitigated is for handlers and trainers to stage mock "finds"
| so that the dogs can feel successful."
| TomK32 wrote:
| Just like me when I fix a bug within a minute by pure
| chance... I need those easy wins.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Ha yeah seriously.
|
| That makes me think of a managerial strategy that
| involves feeding a low performing employee softball tasks
| and praising them for completing them. Once they are
| convinced they are highly competent slowly start ramping
| up the complexity.
| SmellTheGlove wrote:
| I do this with new people. Being new somewhere is a skill
| a lot of people I've hired don't have. I toss them some
| meatballs so they can get a couple of quick, visible
| wins. You figure you hired them because they know what
| they're doing, so help them establish their confidence
| early on. I highly recommend doing this.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The way I've heard avalanche dogs are trained here is that
| they are rewarded for accurate information, so in principle
| they ought to be as satisfied with their job after finding
| "no people" or "dead person" as well as "live person".
| dmurray wrote:
| But in their training they find living people. During
| real disasters, there might not be time to focus on
| rewarding the dog.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Dogs are social creatures. These dogs are _well_ aware of
| humans as fellow social creatures. Constantly finding
| _dead people_ might be inherently distressing, in the
| same way it 'd be distressing to constantly find dead
| dogs.
| switch007 wrote:
| I've never understood people who say dogs are hard to train.
| They are SO motivated by food
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Which is depressingly animalistic.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| How so? Humans are very much the same way in many years,
| particularly as children.
| pxc wrote:
| Food is a primary reinforcers for all species. Neither
| humans nor dogs are special in that respect. I don't see
| why anyone should find that depressing.
|
| Spend some time training dogs and you'll also find both
| that food motivation can vary quite a bit (some dogs are
| more interested in toys than food, for instance) and also
| that it's quite possible to train dogs without always
| relying on a food reward.
|
| Generally the deeper you go with understanding and
| training dog behavior, the more you realize how the same
| learning theory that informs scientific dog training also
| describes human behavior. (Imo it also reveals
| deficiencies in thinking in terms of learning
| theory/behaviorism alone; idk how you could work closely
| with animals and seriously believe they lack cognition.)
| asimovfan wrote:
| We are also the same. We are out for food, the rest is just
| talk..
| swatcoder wrote:
| What do you mean by that?
|
| Of course sharing food is a way to build social bonding and
| positively motivate social conformance. It is with people
| too, which is why it's so natural for us to carry it over
| to our relationship with dogs.
|
| How or why is that depressing?
|
| It's _good_ that we crave what helps us thrive and that we
| can recognize who makes it easy for us to have more, and
| there 's a beautiful elegance to that fact that so many
| creatures share the trait, across such diverse lineages as
| birds, reptiles, fish, arthropods, mammals, etc
|
| Isn't that inspiring, rather than depressing?
| qwertox wrote:
| I ride a lot of bike. I love it when dog owners see
| someone approaching on a bike, tell their dog to sit and
| give him a treat. These dogs will then stop when they
| notice a bike approaching while the owner is distracted.
| I am always so grateful that I say thank you to the
| owners.
|
| Then there are those who just don't care to train their
| dogs.
| jumploops wrote:
| Not all dogs are motivated by food.
|
| Our high energy, water-loving, labradoodle is only motivated
| by one thing: frisbee.
| switch007 wrote:
| IME all are...
|
| Labradoodles are loopy, like most of the bred-for-instagram
| breeds. Got to expect the abnormal
| drewmol wrote:
| Some generations of labradoodles are hypoallergenic from
| my understanding.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Pretty much every dog trainer in the world will tell you
| different dogs are motivated to different degrees by
| different things. Very weird point to argue on.
|
| I have two purebred poodles (not bred for Instagram) and
| one is highly motivated by food, the other will decline
| treats pretty often, even treats we know he really loves.
| This is not super atypical of poodles.
|
| And to put another layer of complication on your
| dismissal of other people's challenges training dogs: the
| _not_ food-motivated one is _way_ easier to train.
| pseudostem wrote:
| Neither did I, until I got this lovely idiot who's probably
| bipolar and probably on the spectrum. They're motivated by
| food, yes; and we're motivated by unconditional love.
| mikestew wrote:
| Most dogs are, yes. I train dogs at an animal shelter, and I
| can tell you that not _all_ dogs are motivated by food. Some
| will just turn their nose up at even the tastiest of treats.
| Some of those dogs might rather have a pet on the head or
| some praise. A rare few don't seem motivated by much of
| anything.
|
| But for the 80% case, yeah, grab some string cheese and a
| clicker.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.rover.com/blog/clicker-training-dogs/
| switch007 wrote:
| Perhaps overfed? Have owned dogs all my life, also trained
| 4 rescues, and various friends' dogs and never yet met one
| who can resist chicken. Relativity small sample size of
| about 20 dogs I admit
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Depends on the dog. I've trained two puppies this year.
|
| The first one was stupid easy to train. Food motivated and
| could be refocused in every situation with food. Picked up
| commands quickly. Would do training basically any time of
| day.
|
| Second dog just stares at me if she doesn't want to be
| trained or feels the task is too hard. When she gets
| distracted, it doesn't matter how high of a reward I give,
| she won't take it if she doesn't want it.
| quectophoton wrote:
| If you search "magic pie bush" you can find other similar
| stories :)
| raldi wrote:
| Is it possible the names of the toys were fitting, like Kiki and
| Bouba? It would be interesting to see result where the toys had
| the same names but the dogs had never learned them.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Orwell wrote two books which purported to sketch different
| societies from his own mid-century english one:
|
| In _1984_ , the inner party sell the story of "english
| socialism", although closer inspection reveals a tripartite
| distinction in which they (nomenklatura) derive most of the
| benefit from a system administered by the outer party
| (apparatchiks, kept on a tight leash) and staffed by the proles
| (who have more freedom than outer party members, because, well,
| they're harmless).
|
| In _Animal Farm_ , the pigs sell the story of "animalism",
| although closer inspection reveals a tripartite distinction in
| which they derive most of the benefit from a system administered
| by the dogs and staffed by the other animals.
|
| In _1984_ , the distinction between inner and outer party is in
| theory not a matter of family background, but depends merely upon
| performance on standardised exams during adolescence.
|
| If we can push the loose parallels between the two works, then
| we'd expect that according to Orwell's model of animals, while
| pigs are the brightest among the domesticated species, dogs are
| not far behind in intellect? Do we expect he'd have been
| surprised at TFA's reporting?
|
| Lagniappe: https://ribbonfarm.wpenginepowered.com/wp-
| content/uploads/20...
|
| (I know dogs buy into The House Rules so much that they can be
| remarkably guilty-looking if you run across clear evidence of
| them having done something they were supposed not to do; the
| question Venkatesh Rao might ask is if any dogs ever attempt to
| shift the blame onto another critter?)
| smogcutter wrote:
| In the case of animal farm, it's not so much that the dogs are
| more intelligent than the other animals as that Napoleon takes
| advantage of their disposition to unshakeable loyalty and need
| for a master. Likewise, unfortunately, in life.
|
| If you _have_ to rank the animals by intelligence, second (or
| first, even?) is certainly Benjamin the donkey.
| smittywerben wrote:
| I remember how happy our Golden Retriever was after digging up
| his Kong toy buried in the dirt in the backyard from eons ago. He
| liked hiding bones out there, and he had several Kong toys laying
| around the house and yard, but this dirty earthy Kong toy must
| have gone missing and when he dug it up it was like he struck
| oil.
| quintes wrote:
| Our dog a shitzu cross can remember multiple toy names, and go
| find the specific one.
|
| Dogs are the best man
| nutrie wrote:
| What always surprises me is they remember places they haven't
| been at for many years as well. Not so much people in my
| experience. I guess we don't matter to them as much as we like
| to think we do :)
| quintes wrote:
| Remembering places is an interesting one, I've not
| experienced that with our little guy except he knows the vet
| and the kennel and not a fan of either. I suspect you're
| right and we are not as important as we think we are to them
| but a wagging tail tells me all I need to know!
| jumploops wrote:
| It always bothers me how little intelligence we assume of and
| thus ascribe to the animal kingdom.
|
| Especially to our mammalian brethren, who have many of the same
| underlying neurological mechanisms (though in differing
| quantities).
|
| Dogs have co-evolved with humans for thousands of years.
|
| Remembering names seems like a useful albeit unsurprising skill,
| especially when it comes to recognizing/avoiding danger.
|
| "The bear/wolf/demon tribe is back!"
|
| Will we ever stop looking down from our heavenly pedestal? Can we
| instead treat at our earthly contemporaries as different but
| equal?
| accrual wrote:
| I agree, I think there is a lot of intelligence around us,
| perhaps even in ways we don't fully see or imagine. One of the
| largest organisms on Earth is a mycelium network in Oregon,
| it's nearly 4 square miles in size.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...
|
| Is it possible this mass of mycelium has some form of
| intelligence that is difficult for humans to measure? Maybe it
| "knows" things we can barely conceptualize. What about trees
| that stand in place for hundreds, or even thousands of years?
|
| https://www.treehugger.com/the-worlds-oldest-living-trees-48...
|
| Perhaps the trees experience time differently due to their slow
| growth, and they too have "witnessed" many different events in
| their environment over time, encapsulating them in the rings
| and structures within themselves.
|
| We could write this off as non-sense as trees have no nervous
| system, but maybe a lack of such a system doesn't necessarily
| preclude some type of intelligence we just don't consider
| "intelligent".
| throwaway892552 wrote:
| It's almost as if we have some type of coping mechanism. If we
| recognized more of ourselves in our animals, we would need to
| treat them more humane.
|
| Just look at all the cases in human history where other people
| were reduced to primitive beings and could be treated more
| cruelly. If we can rationalize these actions towards fellow
| humans, I assume that the barrier for accepting animal emotions
| is even harder to break
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Wow, now release the study on how to take over control of an
| animal remotely.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Here I can barely remember the browser tab I was just working on.
| kazinator wrote:
| I don't believe it. Dogs' brain matter is a different shade of
| gray, which only remembers for six weeks.
| denkmoon wrote:
| That's a clearly absurd proposition. My family's dogs remember
| me when i haven't been around for 6 months, let alone 6 weeks.
| kazinator wrote:
| [delayed]
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