Viral videos of dogs using soundboard buttons to “talk” have captivated social media users, raising an intriguing question: Are these dogs genuinely communicating, or just responding to cues from their owners?
A new study, published in PLOS One by researchers from the University of California, San Diego and other institutions, found that dogs can indeed understand and use soundboard buttons to produce contextually appropriate responses.
The study offers evidence that dogs aren’t just reacting to their owners’ cues but are processing the words they hear or press themselves.
“If we had found that dogs are not understanding … the sounds produced while pressing buttons … then it would cast significant doubt on any claim that these animals might be using these buttons to communicate with humans,” co-author Federico Rossano told Newsweek.
“In other words, I see this as a green light to go further,” he added.
Patrick Wood/Courtesy Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego
The finding challenges public skepticism about whether soundboard-using dogs truly understand what the buttons mean.
“The skepticism comes mainly for two different reasons: one, the history of animal language studies with nonhuman primates, which was not always ethically conducted and was often anecdotal in nature; and two, the fact that these had become a social media sensation, and anything popular on social media is often frowned upon in scientific environments,” Rossano said.
The study involved two complementary experiments. In the first, researchers visited 30 dogs’ homes across the country to test their responses to soundboard buttons. The second experiment used citizen science, with 29 dog owners conducting trials at home under remote guidance.
The study’s methodology was preregistered, meaning the research team outlined its hypotheses, data collection methods, variables and analysis plans before collecting any data.
“We want to be accountable to the scientific community and use these studies as a first step toward convincing them that we are doing it scientifically and systematically, and we are not rushing into publishing results we do not have credible evidence for,” Rossano said.
The experiments found that dogs trained to use soundboards responded appropriately to words such as play and outside, regardless of whether the words were spoken by their owners, triggered by their owners pressing a button or triggered by an unrelated person pressing them.
This suggests that dogs are processing the words rather than merely responding to their owners’ body language or presence.
“This is a comprehension study, and we have only barely scratched the surface of the type of vocabulary that participants are teaching these dogs,” Rossano added. The team hopes to assess more abstract concepts in its future work, further illuminating the complexities of dog cognition and communication.
Rossano continued: “Some of our dog participants are currently using more than 100 buttons, often combining them in nonrandom sequences.
“We want to show whether it is possible that these animals can use these buttons reliably, whether they understand the humans when the humans press them and ultimately whether using these buttons is good for the animals.”
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References
Bastos, A. P. M., Evenson, A., Wood, P. M., Houghton, Z. N., Naranjo, L., Smith, G. E., Cairo-Evans, A., Korpos, L., Terwilliger, J., Raghunath, S., Paul, C., Hou, H. & Rossano, F. (2024). How do soundboard-trained dogs respond to human button presses? An investigation into word comprehension. PLOS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307189