Computers to say what dogs want out loud

A dog is a man’s best friend. Not quite if it just peed on your expensive rug. Pity that we are not on the same wavelength with our best buddies when it comes to understanding what they really want! So we look forward to our next best buddy to rescue us – the computer.

Dog Bark1

Scientists at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary have digitized dog barks in order to translate them. A team led by Csaba Molnár

analyzed more than 6,000 barks made by 14 different Hungarian sheepdogs. And since dogs keep it relatively simple, their sounds were translated into words like stranger, play, walk, fight and so on.

The barks were first recorded and then digitized. Computers were then asked to spot differences using software. The computer identified difference in barks 43 per cent of the times. These results are a part of latest issue of Animal Cognition. Computers were most successful in identifying “fight” and “stranger” sounds and least successful in reporting “play.”

Later the computer was called on to identify different dogs according to the varied barks they had. The software could do this accurately 52 per cent of the times. Quite a remarkable feat since humans do not usually spot differences amongst dogs of the same breed.

If these findings are something to go by, dogs would soon be

able to say to computers exactly what’s on their mind.

Via