Barks to Bytes: Tell Me How You Really Feel

Posted on January 17, 2008
Filed Under General |

Cacophony of Canines? Not so says recent research out of Hungary, where researchers analyzed over 6000 barks from 14 different Hungarian Sheepdogs. Read more here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080116/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_hungary_dog_1. We have bigger questions to answer.

As any dog owner worth their salt knows, we already know our mutts basic emotions - and when they communicate them to us. In addition, we’re talking a small cross section of pooches here: 6000 barks and yelps amongst 14 dogs? What did that take them - all of one day to amass that critical data? We just get worked up with all the buzz surrounding this one. Aside from all that, research shows us the computer judged the dog’s emotions correctly, 43% of the time. Human beings judged the emotions correct 40% of the time. We’re talking about 3% here…in a group of 6000 barks, from 14 dogs…of one breed.

Again, not the kind of science we would go all Jetsons about, but certainly entertaining. There may definitely be a market for some kind of dog-human communication decoder thingamajig in the future, but then again…do we really need pet owners who rely on a computer program to tell them how their pet is feeling?

Even Astro didn’t need that.

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