Does a computer know your dog better than you?

In a study that featured Hungarian Sheep Dogs, computers and humans, it would appear…..YES! Recently scientists have been testing artificial intelligence software to determine what a dog’s bark means. 14 dogs were used and 6 distinct bark types were taped. The six types of barks were:

Dogs barking at strangers

Barks during a fight (with a trainer and protective clothing, not dog fights)

Barks for walks

Barks for balls

Playtime barks

Barks while the dog was left alone and the owner walked out of sight

After an analysis of the different barks was complete, it was found that humans and computers were relatively similar in identifying the different barks. The computer identified walk and ball barks better, while humans were able to identify play and alone barks better than the computer.

The computer could identify which dog made each bark 52 percent of the time. In the past, scientists have found that humans can not reliably distinguish between individual dogs by their barks at all. Dogs were chosen for this experiment because of their long history of living and interacting with humans. In the future it is said that different breeds of dogs will be used in the experiment. Dogs bred for different kinds of work could have different types of barks. For the full article please see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22689420/