Feb 16, 2022 06:37 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 16, 2022 06:43 PM by C C.)
The “mean wolf to friendly dog” domestication story might be wrong
https://bigthink.com/life/dog-domesticat...ory-wrong/
KEY POINTS: Domestication is commonly thought to have made dogs less aggressive and granted them enhanced socio-cognitive abilities compared to wolves. But free-ranging domestic dogs are often more aggressive than wolves. Moreover, studies find that wolves raised by humans cooperate as well with their caretakers as do pet dogs. This suggests that domestication didn't lead to less aggression or enhanced cognitive abilities in dogs. Rather, domestication simply may have made dogs less fearful and more subservient... (MORE - details)
Do birds have language? It depends on how you define it.
https://knowablemagazine.org/article/min...e-language
EXCERPT: . . . With all these similarities in mind, it’s reasonable to ask if birds themselves have language. It may come down to how you define it.
“I wouldn’t say they have language in the way linguistic experts define it,” says neuroscientist Erich Jarvis of the Rockefeller University in New York City, and a coauthor of Hyland Bruno’s paper on birdsong and language. But for scientists like Jarvis who study the neurobiology of vocal communication in birds, “I would say they have a remnant or a rudimentary form of what we might call spoken language.
“It’s like the word ‘love.’ You ask lots of people what does it mean, and you’re going to get a lot of different meanings. Which means that it’s partly a mystery.”
There are multiple components to spoken language, Jarvis says, and some are shared by more species than others. A fairly common component is auditory learning, like a dog figuring out how to respond to the spoken command “sit.” The vocal learning that humans and some birds do is one of the most specialized components, but all of them are shared to some degree by other animals, he says.
The grammar of bird calls
One key element of human language is semantics, the connection of words with meanings. Scientists had long thought that unlike our words, animal vocalizations were involuntary, reflecting the emotional state of the animal without conveying any other information. But over the last four decades, numerous studies have shown that various animals have distinct calls with specific meanings.
Many bird species use different alarm calls for different predators. Japanese tits, which nest in tree cavities, have one call that causes their chicks to crouch down to avoid being pulled out of the nest by crows, and another call for tree snakes that sends the chicks jumping out of the nest entirely. Siberian jays vary their calls depending on whether a predatory hawk is seen perching, looking for prey or actively attacking — and each call elicits a different response from other nearby jays. And black-capped chickadees change the number of “dees” in their characteristic call to indicate the relative size and threat of predators.
Two recent studies suggest that the order of some birds’ vocalizations may impact their meaning. Though the idea is still controversial, this could represent a rudimentary form of the rules governing the order and combination of words and elements in human language known as syntax, as illustrated by the classic “dog bites man” vs. “man bites dog” example... (MORE - missing details)
https://bigthink.com/life/dog-domesticat...ory-wrong/
KEY POINTS: Domestication is commonly thought to have made dogs less aggressive and granted them enhanced socio-cognitive abilities compared to wolves. But free-ranging domestic dogs are often more aggressive than wolves. Moreover, studies find that wolves raised by humans cooperate as well with their caretakers as do pet dogs. This suggests that domestication didn't lead to less aggression or enhanced cognitive abilities in dogs. Rather, domestication simply may have made dogs less fearful and more subservient... (MORE - details)
Do birds have language? It depends on how you define it.
https://knowablemagazine.org/article/min...e-language
EXCERPT: . . . With all these similarities in mind, it’s reasonable to ask if birds themselves have language. It may come down to how you define it.
“I wouldn’t say they have language in the way linguistic experts define it,” says neuroscientist Erich Jarvis of the Rockefeller University in New York City, and a coauthor of Hyland Bruno’s paper on birdsong and language. But for scientists like Jarvis who study the neurobiology of vocal communication in birds, “I would say they have a remnant or a rudimentary form of what we might call spoken language.
“It’s like the word ‘love.’ You ask lots of people what does it mean, and you’re going to get a lot of different meanings. Which means that it’s partly a mystery.”
There are multiple components to spoken language, Jarvis says, and some are shared by more species than others. A fairly common component is auditory learning, like a dog figuring out how to respond to the spoken command “sit.” The vocal learning that humans and some birds do is one of the most specialized components, but all of them are shared to some degree by other animals, he says.
The grammar of bird calls
One key element of human language is semantics, the connection of words with meanings. Scientists had long thought that unlike our words, animal vocalizations were involuntary, reflecting the emotional state of the animal without conveying any other information. But over the last four decades, numerous studies have shown that various animals have distinct calls with specific meanings.
Many bird species use different alarm calls for different predators. Japanese tits, which nest in tree cavities, have one call that causes their chicks to crouch down to avoid being pulled out of the nest by crows, and another call for tree snakes that sends the chicks jumping out of the nest entirely. Siberian jays vary their calls depending on whether a predatory hawk is seen perching, looking for prey or actively attacking — and each call elicits a different response from other nearby jays. And black-capped chickadees change the number of “dees” in their characteristic call to indicate the relative size and threat of predators.
Two recent studies suggest that the order of some birds’ vocalizations may impact their meaning. Though the idea is still controversial, this could represent a rudimentary form of the rules governing the order and combination of words and elements in human language known as syntax, as illustrated by the classic “dog bites man” vs. “man bites dog” example... (MORE - missing details)