KMc:To claim that Wernicke's and Broca's areas are the only language areas in the brain is to do a disservice to what is known as human language and to ignore its complexities.
LCK: I never said or even hinted that Broca’s and Wernicke’s were the only language areas in the brain. In fact, the first few times I mentioned them I added “etc.” for the very reason you’re arguing here. Even so, what’s your point? Again, this is a non-argument for dogs having natural language.
KMc: Humans with damage to either or both of these areas, or damage to the concept area that connects the two, or damage to the corpus callosum which would destroy the language areas in the right hemisphere from interacting with those in the left, can still live their lives and communicate with others.
LCK: Yes, I’m familiar with this type of phenomenon. But these are human beings we’re talking about, whose brains “come equipped” with these language centers in their brains. There is no evidence that dogs have such language centers in their brains, in fact, just the opposite.
KMc: The point being, even with these language areas, humans who have lesions occurring in these areas, due to strokes, or head trauma, etc, can still learn to live their lives afterwards. And they learn to communicate in other ways. Simply lacking language on its own is not synonymous with communication.
LCK: You keep ignoring the fact that there are two types of communication, one which requires language and one that doesn’t.
KMc: only humans speak human language.
LCK: I don’t care what you call it, or what kind of frame you’re trying to put around it, it’s the ability to use symbols to communicate that’s under discussion. Parsing it out into different species having different types of language is going beyond the realm of what’s discussed, let alone what’s real. To a linguist there is no such thing as a simple language, eg. It comes as a complex totality or it’s not natural, innate language.
KMc: Brains are highly complex, reorganizing systems, and we are learning more and more all of the time about how plastic they are. The fact that we now know that brains DO reorganize themselves, and even organize themselves different in left-handed people than right-handed people, and when reorganizing in developing brains can do nothing short of amazing things to compensate for damages, it's not hard to realize that just because a dog's brain is *different*, or is organized differently, it doesn't mean they can't communicate with each other.
LCK: Again, this is a non-argument. I’ve never said that dogs can’t communicate, just the opposite. What I have said is they can’t form the intent to report information, and that they don’t have the cognitive architecture for natural symbolic language. So how does the plasticity of the human brain say that they do? If we use the architecture analogy (which has been applied by neuroscientists) to the issue of plasticity, or the brain’s ability to compensate for loss of cognitive function caused by damage to a specific part of the brain, we have to recognize that like in an actual structure such as a building, the architecture of the human brain quite probably comes with certain cognitive blueprints. That makes sense, right? So while damage to one area may temporarily cause a loss of speech, etc., the blueprint is what causes other areas of the brain to reconfigure themselves to compensate for that loss. That’s what brain plasticity is, basically: another part of the brain takes over so that the blueprint is still being followed. But in reference to a dog’s cognitive architecture, this only means that a dog’s brain probably also has the plasticity necessary to compensate for a lost ability. It does
not mean the dog’s brain can grow abilities that aren’t part of its original blueprint, just as it can't grow wings and fly.
KMc: I don't need to know where the brain areas are to know that they [dogs] do communicate with each other, with intent. If you choose not to believe that, that's your perogative, but that's not how most of the world, including the professional world, sees it.
LCK: Again, a non-argument. Most people in the world believe in the existence of some form of God. Does that constitute proof that God exists? I’m not arguing an atheistic pov, I’m just saying what you’ve reported doesn’t constitute proof of anything except that, according to you, most people in the world believe dogs can communicate with intent. I don't even know that that's true. But let's say it is, it doesn’t say anything about what a dog's abilities are or are not, just what people believe. And when you say “the professional world,” to whom are you referring? There are thousands of professions. Which ones do you mean, and what surveys do have to prove that this is the case?
KMc: Because not much functional neuroimaging is done in dogs while dogs perform certain tasks (such as barking, or listening to human cues, or whining), it's really above [beyond?] any of us to say that dogs don't have some sort of equivalent area of their brain that contains a form of language.
LCK: This is almost a good point. But it only satisfies one piece of the pie I’ve put forth. Which is that dogs don’t have the same kind of cognitive architecture we know from neuroscience controls the processing of various aspects of human/natural language. Do they have their own equivalent of a broca's, etc.? You're right. We don't know.
But there’s another argument inherent to the one that says they don't have an actual Broca's, etc., just like the one in the human brain, which is that we DO know that many primitive parts of the mammalian brain, shared by dogs and humans, do function in a similar or like manner in both species: the amygdalla, the anterior cingulate cortex, the hippocampus, etc. And given that there are commonalities in the human and dog brain, and that human language functions through Broca’s, Wernicke’s, or Brodman’s areas, etc., etc., etc it would be quite a leap to propose that even though dogs don’t have these same areas in their brains, that they still somehow have the capacity to communicate through the use of symbols by some unknown part of their brains that “haven’t been discovered yet.” Is there a language center in the medulla, the hippocampus?
Yes we can all old our breaths and hope that science will discover the canine equivalent of these cognitive pieces of the human brain one day. But that brings us to the next piece of the pie, which is that there is no evidence that any dog has ever used symbols to communicate. The behavior is simply not there. And dogs are one of the most observed animals on the planet. If they actually had the innate capacity for using symbolic language, wouldn’t it have showed up in some observable form by now? Yet it hasn’t.
Then there’s the problem of adaptive purpose. We can design a model for canine behavior that doesn’t require this kind of top-heavy, non-adaptive, imagined ability to use symbolic language. Ours would be, oh, lets' say a simple energetically-based model that successfully describes all of a dog's social and communicative behaviors, without the need for bringing symbol thinking into it. And we also know that having an ability to communicate by the use of symbols would serve no adaptive purpose for dogs, it would slow down their ability to react and respond to stimuli in their environment. So why would they have evolved this unnecessary ability, particularly when they have us to do most of their thinking
for them?
So you add all of that to the cognitive architecture argument, and you’ve got a pretty steep uphill battle to making a case for a dog’s ability to communicate through symbolic language.
KMc: Animals, but to remain on topic, dogs, have been shown to show a very wide ranger of higher order cognitive functioning
LCK: This is simply not true. Nothing of the sort has ever been proven. Just the opposite. (Read
Rational Animals?)
KMc: So to know this, and to know what types of higher functioning dogs already possess [which they don’t (see above)—LCK] it's easy to begin to see just how plastic brains are and how they reorganize themselves to work within the confines they are given.
LCK: There’s no question that dogs are highly flexible. That’s not at question here.
KMc: Dogs can act with intent
LCK: No they can’t. You’re mistaking desire for intent.
KMc: they can quantify
LCK: No, they can’t.
KMc: they have memory
LCK: This is quite true.
KMc: they plan strategies
LCK: No, they do not.
KMc: and they most certainly communicate with a range of sounds, body gestures, and scent
LCK: Yes, but you keep ignoring the fact that there are two types of communication, one which requires the use of symbols, and which is clearly done with the intent (for the most part), to report information from one mind to the mind of another (which requires a full-blown ToM), and the other form of communication which is usually an unconscious expression of an internal state, even in humans. And as I said previously, when an ant excretes a pheromone, that too is a form of communication. But the ant doesn’t have any intent to communicate, does he? Communication does not automatically presuppose intent. And in ever single case of a dog communicating something to a human or to another dog the behavior can be successfully described as being an attempt to get the other being to DO something, not necessarily to UNDERSTAND something. If you don't see the difference between these two things, we really are at an impasse.
KMc: Allowing the idea that dogs have these higher-order cognitive abilities is not trying to humanize them.
LCK: I disagree. I think it really is. I think it’s the min-me syndrome to a tee.
KMc: They are still dogs, with dog needs, dog thoughts, and dog drives, a predator and canine at heart. So nobody is trying to humanize dogs. All they are doing is realizing that the gap in not nearly as large as it was once thought, and that realizing the capabilities and limitations of a species is truly understanding and respecting the animal for what it is.
LCK: I disagree. I think it comes from the consciousness-as-continuum fallacy, and doesn’t give dogs their proper due at all. I personally think dogs are all the more wonderful for how they operate without this top-heavy mental machinery that we carry around in our heads.
KMc: I feel like I'm pretty much beating a dead horse now, the same things are being mentioned over and over now, so for now it seems that the conversation is at a standstill, and there's no point in discussing the same matter over and over again.
LCK: Tell me about it. As far as I can tell I’m the only here who’s actually studied this topic in depth for the past 15 years from 6 or 7 different angles and disciplines.