Study Aims To Read Dogs' Thoughts

jjp9999 writes "A new study at Emory University is trying to figure out what dogs think. The study uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the dogs' brains while they're shown different stimuli. Results from the first study will be published by the Public Library of Science, where the dogs were shown hand signals from their owners. 'We hope this opens up a whole new door for understanding canine cognition and inter-species communication. We want to understand the dog-human relationship, from the dog's perspective,' said Gregory Berns, director of the Emory Center for Neuropolicy and lead researcher of the dog project."

Comments

Hello?

[dolo724]

Yes, this is Dog.

Re:Hello?

[HornWumpus]

Cats thoughts: Kill the human? No, need food, human bad to eat. Kill the human? No, need catnip. Kill the human? No, need water. DOG. RUN.

Re:Hello?

[xevioso]

Yeah, I used to think my cats jump up on the bed in the morning to see if I am awake so they can say hello and greet me as I start the new day. Actually I have figured out they are checking to see if I am alive or not so the feasting on my still-warm corpse can begin.

Already done

[Anonymous Coward]

Bacon? Is that Bacon? Got to have that bacon! Bacon!

Read their diaries

[naroom]

Why bother with MRI? We can just read the dog's diary.

Old news.

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Gary Larson figured this out ages ago.

Re:Old news.

[Dogtanian]

You bet he did!

Profit

[Frankie70]

1) Read dog's thoughts.
2) .......
3) Profit.

What's the missing 2nd step here?
Only a dog would know. If only we could read their thoughts. Wait.....

Canine Decoder

[goombah99]

The Canine speech decoder already exists:
http://d1syadvoyajtpr.cloudfront.net/534fa0b9aacaf866a8eb6c6f51fa1388_500.jpg

I CAN HAZ TRANSLATION?

[Guppy]

Cats thoughts

Good attempt but your dialect and accent are off. As a long-time scholar of Cat, let me translate for you:

I CAN KILLZ HOOMAN? No, need füdz, hoomanz is made of bad füdz.
I CAN KILLZ HOOMAN? No, give catnipz plz. Kthnxbai.
I CAN KILLZ HOOMAN? No, give waterz plz. Kthnxbai.
DOG. RUN.

It has already been decoded.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

An aspiring entomologist, named Gary Larson, had already published a short paper on what dogs hear. Unfortunately I don't have a link but it goes something like this:

You: Stupid dog Bingo, Why did you do that Bingo? Should you always shred the paper like this Bingo? How can I read it now Bingo! You dimwit Bingo!

Dog hears: xxxxxx xxx Bingo, xxx xxx xxx xxx xxxx Bingo? xxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx Bingo? xxx xxx X xxxx xx xxx Bingo! xxx xxxxxx Bingo!

They already talk

[Tablizer]

But dogs can already talk. I swear, here's an absolutely true conversion I had with my dog:

Me: "Sparky, what's on top of a house?"

Dog: "Roof!"

Me: "Sparky, how does sand-paper feel?"

Dog: "Rough!"

Me: "Sparky, who is the best baseball player of all time?"

Dog: "Ruthf!"

Re:It's about time, we can learn from other specie

[Eightbitgnosis]

How complex do you exactly think the mind of a being who eats cat turds out of a littler box actually is?