According to a new study, dogs have an impressive ability to retain the names of their toys in memory, even after years without seeing them.
Previously, scientists discovered that dogs are very good at learning the names of toys. For example, Chaser, a Border Collie, was able to learn the names of more than 1,000 toys.
Now, researchers have found that, besides learning with ease, some dogs can remember the name of a toy even when they haven’t seen it for two years. Shany Dror, from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, said that the results showed these dogs stored the names of objects in their long-term memory, instead of simply having their memory refreshed by their owners through frequent play with the item.
In a previous study, scientists reported that the 5 dogs involved in the research had learned the names of 12 new toys, which were then put away for two years. In the new study, the dogs’ owners brought the toys back for testing. Three dogs had all 12, another had 11 toys, and one dog had only five toys, as some had been lost.
After testing to see if the dogs were able to recognize these toys after such a long time without seeing them, the results revealed that, overall, the dogs chose the correct toy 44% of the time on average, with some having a success rate of up to 60%. These figures, the researchers add, are far above the expected level.
Dror added that the findings could have implications for understanding the evolution of human language, as memory is one of its many components. “Why is language uniquely human? To understand this, we need to figure out which parts of language are available in other animals and which parts are not,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.
This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.
