Pet owners sometimes note that their dog or cat likes to watch while they read a book. So animals can read too? Some species have an amazing ability to understand symbols, but reading is a little different. Portal popsci.com speakWhy.
For example, you can take similar bonobos. The Iowa Primate Conservation and Awareness Initiative has spent decades introducing visual vocabulary and symbols that convey a variety of meanings to these primates. From bananas to abstract ideas. Bonobos use a computerized touchscreen vocabulary to communicate with people and visitors.
For example, they can ask for their favorite treats, mark other pets they want to be around, and ask people to play with them. A bonobo named Kanzi, who has died aged 44, was a superstar – he mastered hundreds of vocabulary words and could combine them creatively. Therefore, he once called beavers “water gorillas”.
Bonobos are not the only animals capable of decoding human-made symbols. Parrots can communicate with their owners using tablets, dolphins can be taught to read two-dimensional symbols in the form of commands, and pigeons can visually distinguish correct words from incorrect ones. In New Zealand, four pigeons were trained to recognize dozens of words; the smartest of the four learned about 60 words and could distinguish them from about 1,000 incorrect words. On the screen, each word appeared next to a star, and by giving the birds a treat, the researchers taught them to peck at “real” words.
At the same time, pigeons also pay attention to common letter patterns, allowing them to guess words they have never seen before. It's likely that many other animals with good eyesight could learn the same thing.
But is the ability to recognize symbols equivalent to the ability to read? According to many experts, no. The fact is that reading is a phenomenon that belongs to the field of linguistics and scientists consider it a two-stage process. First, the brain must decode words, turning letters into sounds; it involves knowledge of phonetics, common letter patterns, and an understanding of the basic elements of words. And in the second stage, the brain combines these sounds into a word with a specific meaning. This in turn requires knowledge of syntax, word meanings, context and ideas.
Because animals have a limited ability to understand human language, they cannot “read” like humans. Even for humans themselves, reading is not an innate biological skill but a relatively recent cultural invention. Reading and writing originated only five or six thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, but Homo sapiens appeared on Earth 300,000 years ago. Humans lived on this planet long before writing and reading were invented.
People's reading ability is shaped by life experiences and social context. In the case of Kanzi the bonobo, the ability to use graphic symbols to communicate with people comes from growing up in an environment where both of these elements are constantly present. Primates raised without the influence of wild animals and humans cannot show similar results.
In other words, scientists do not equate animal mastery of symbols with human reading ability. To read, you need to perfectly understand human language, which animals simply cannot do.
