JOURNAL ARTICLE · EDITORIAL BRIEF
How do soundboard-trained dogs respond to human button presses? An investigation into word comprehension
Amalia P. M. Bastos; Ashley Evenson; Patrick M. Wood; Zachary N. Houghton; Lucas Naranjo; Gabriella E. Smith; Alexandria Cairo-Evans; Lisa Korpos; Jack Terwilliger; Sarita Raghunath; Cassandra Paul; Hairou Hou; Federico Rossano
PLOS ONE · 28 August 2024 · Background
The finding or development
Dogs responded appropriately to play and outside words spoken or played through buttons, including buttons pressed by an unfamiliar researcher. Food-related responses did not show the same pattern.
What supports it
Peer-reviewed, preregistered experiments: 30 dogs in researcher-led home visits and 29 in a citizen-science analysis; blinded video coding.
Reviewed: Publisher abstract, methods, results, discussion and competing-interest statement; analysis code not audited.
Why it matters for design
A useful foundation for evaluating animal interfaces: separate responses to human signals from animals independently producing meaningful requests.
Read with this in mind
Owner-trained participants and a few routine words limit generalisation. This tests responses, not human-like language, spontaneous button communication or improved welfare. Several authors disclosed FluentPet employment or past consultancy.
Original source
Opens the publisher outside this reading room. If nothing opens, copy the source address below.
Reference tools · Paperpile & more
Using Paperpile? Open the original source above, then use the Paperpile extension to save it to your library. Its inline buttons appear on supported websites.
Paperpile’s browser extension guide (opens an external website)Or download the original reference and import the file into Paperpile, Zotero or EndNote. Check the details against the source before citing.
Citation details are requested from Crossref when you download. The file contains a reference, not the full paper.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307189
This is the complete UX Observatory brief, not the publisher’s full article. Follow the original source to read the work.