Włodarczyk Justyna, Harrison Jack, Kruszona-Barełkowska Sara L, Wynne Clive D L
Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, 00-312 Warszawa, Poland.
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
Animals (Basel). 2024 Nov 14;14(22):3272. doi: 10.3390/ani14223272.
In recent years, dogs that appear to communicate with people by pressing buttons on soundboards that replay pre-recorded English words have become very popular on social media online. We explore how these dogs belong to a historical tradition that dates back at least to the Middle Ages and peaked in the early twentieth century. Through analyses of short videos, books, and training manuals, we identify several paradoxes inherent in this phenomenon. These include how the dogs appear to provide unmediated access to their thoughts, and yet, their button presses are typically incoherent and require interpretation. They also require months of training to "spontaneously" express themselves. There is also an anthropomorphism and -centrism in claiming that a human skill-language-is required for a dog to express mental states that it already possesses. This approach to communicating with dogs quiets canine forms of expression such as barking, whining, bodily postures, and odors and replaces them with endearing but infantile human voices. We suggest that, while this endeavor may be well intentioned and often playful, it runs the risk of skewing people's perception of dogs towards fur-clad infants rather than adult members of a different species and of making people less attentive to canine nonverbal communication.
近年来，那些似乎通过按压发声板上的按钮来与人交流的狗狗在网络社交媒体上变得非常受欢迎，这些发声板会播放预先录制好的英语单词。我们探究了这些狗狗如何属于一种至少可以追溯到中世纪并在二十世纪初达到顶峰的历史传统。通过对短视频、书籍和训练手册的分析，我们识别出了这一现象中固有的几个矛盾之处。其中包括狗狗似乎能让人直接了解它们的想法，然而，它们按下按钮的行为通常是不连贯的，需要解读。它们还需要数月的训练才能“自发地”表达自己。在声称狗狗表达其已然拥有的心理状态需要人类技能——语言——这一点上，也存在拟人化和人类中心主义。这种与狗狗交流的方式压制了狗狗的表达方式，如吠叫､哀鸣、身体姿势和气味，并用可爱但幼稚的人类声音取而代之。我们认为，虽然这种努力可能是出于善意且常常充满趣味，但它有可能使人们对狗狗的认知偏向于穿着皮毛的婴儿，而非不同物种的成年个体，并且会让人们对狗狗的非语言交流不那么关注。
