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Organist William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 with the first reflecting telescope that he built. He named it Georgium Sidium in honour of King George III of England but in 1850 it was renamed Uranus in accordance with the tradition of naming planets for Roman gods. |
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Scientists develop computer that can 'translate' a dog's bark
Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 (CST) by Thoth
 What would a dog say if it could talk? "Stranger", "fight", "walk", "alone", "ball" and "play", according to scientists who have developed a computer programme to translate dog barks. The special programme analysed more than 6,000 barks from 14 Hungarian sheepdogs in six different situations.
In a series of tests the team of scientists, from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary led by Csaba Molnár, discovered that a computer could recognise whether a dog was in a stranger, fight, walk, alone, ball or play scenario. The barks were tape recorded and then digitized on a computer, which used software to study their differences.
The computer correctly identified the different situations 43 per cent of the time. Although it was not a high success rate it was far better than human recognition, the researchers said. The computer was most accurate in identifying the "fight" and "stranger" contexts, and was least effective at matching the "play" bark. The results appear in the journal Animal Cognition, and suggest that dogs have acoustically different barks depending on their emotional state.
The researchers also performed a second test, in which the computer identified individual dogs by their bark.
The software correctly
identified the dogs 52 per cent of the time, again much better than the
human result, suggesting there are individual differences in barks even
though humans are not able to recognize them.
The team also plans to compare the barks of different breeds to discover what they have in common.
Copyright: Daily Mail
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Re: Scientists develop computer that can 'translate' a dog's bark
by myztique on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 (CST)
(User Info | Send a Message) | | Once again science lags behind in what has always been common knowledge for pet owners. Jeez, I can tell which of my dogs wants inside without looking just by how they scratch at the door. You can also tell by the pitch of the bark whether it is aggressive (stranger out there!) or play (throw the toy!). What next, they will actually scientifically confirm that yes indeed, my PMS is real? |
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