# What non-human animals recognize their human given name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040 "2011-04-12T01:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![sugaree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@sugaree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sugaree)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/101 "2011-04-14T00:54:52Z")
Well, let me add my anecdata. Two dogs, Mike and Mac, lived and grew old together. Mac died. Six months went by. Then, at a family gathering, Mike was sitting with a small child named Jackson. “Look at those two,” said a relative, affectionately. “Mac and Jack! Mac and Jack!” Note here that the relative had temporarily mixed up his living and dead dogs, and that he was using a loud, singsong tone of voice. And also that Jackson was usually called Jackson, not Jack. Mike jumped up (an unusual burst of activity for him) and started looking around wildly. Then he began whimpering. To me, it looked as if he was looking for his dead friend, then getting distressed when he couldn’t find him. Inflection was important here–since his death, Mac was often talked about in Mike’s hearing, with no reaction from Mike. But when he heard Mac’s name called out, it was obvious that he had that particular pattern of sound associated with Mac himself, just as he knew to come when he heard Mike. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/102 "2011-04-14T01:03:47Z")
**Blake** , let me start off by saying that overall I agree with you: there is no evidence that most animals understand their name as an identity marker, they are only responding to conditioning. But I must nitpick that you are conflating classical (Pavlovian) and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning consists of stimulus-stimulus pairing to produce a reflex response to a conditioned stimulus. Pavlov paired a bell ringing with food (stimulus/stimulus) to produce drooling in response to a bell ringing. Operant conditioning, on the other hand, is based on the ABC model: antecedent, behavior, consequence. Organisms learn new behavior through consequences. This is what is happening with a dog learning to respond to its name. Antecedent: owner calls name. Behavior: dog comes over. Consequence: dog receives affection. I only know of a few animals that I believe past the language test, and those are the bonobos trained by Sue Savage Rumbaugh. Check out this [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhc2zePJFE) of Kanzi, who responds to novel commands, such as, “Put the pine needles in the refrigerator.” This video shows Savage Rumbaugh wearing a welding mask to avoid giving unconscious cues to Kanzi. I have also seen other videos where Kanzi is wearing headphones listening to commands given by a researcher in another room. Research shows that Kanzi and his sister Panbanisha can follow novel commands as well as a four year old child. As for Kanzi knowing his name, the most amazing video I ever saw of Kanzi was as follows (you’ll have to go to UC San Diego and ask the anthropology department for a copy, I watched it in college): Kanzi was sitting with Savage Rumbaugh and another “control” bonobo that did not have any language training (we’ll call him Mike). Savage Rumbaugh said, “Kanzi, tickle Mike.” Kanzi obligingly tickled Mike’s belly with his hand. Savage Rumbaugh then said, “Mike, tickle Kanzi.” There was a pause as Mike looked from the researcher to Kanzi and back again; he had heard his name, but clearly he did not understand. Then, amazingly, Kanzi took Mike’s hand and placed it on his own belly. To me, this shows strong evidence that not only does Kanzi understand English language construction (he comprehended who was the actor in each sentence as well as the verb), but he knew that “Kanzi” referred to himself and “Mike” referred to the other bonobo. What’s more, he tried to correct Mike when Mike did not respond! ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/103 "2011-04-14T05:34:17Z")
**Pyper** , it is a waste of time, his mind is locked to any new information because of the notion that others here do not have the proper sheepskin. _snerk_ ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/104 "2011-04-14T13:30:00Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I have a feeling you are going to tell me this is insufficient for language, and that is what’s frustrating. You gave us something we could directly talk about, we show you a contradiction, and then you change the parameters. I think the problem here is that Blake said up thread that he thought humans couldn’t pick names out of an unfamiliar language spoken naturally. This simply isn’t true - it can be a very challenging task, but it depends on a variety of factors (how distinct are the phonemes, rapidy of speech etc.). It would be almost impossible to pick some names out of some sentences, while others would be relatively easy. Thinking it is an impossible task for humans is why he dismissed it as being impossible for dogs. However, this doesn’t really have any bearing on whether dogs can understand language. Just because some dogs can pick their name (a distinct sound) out of a sentence (lots of sounds run together) doesn’t mean they are parsing them grammatically. The dog Rico is impressive, but with such a small set of commands it’s a big stretch to say he has any understanding of grammer. Blake’s sock example above would be a good test to perform, what contexts can Rico apply these skills to? The capacity for animal learning is a very interesting and quite open subject. However, I do think that many people don’t appreciate quite how big the gulf between human and animal learning is. Some animals exhibit clever tool use in the wild. However, tasks that humans could learn in minutes such as cracking nuts and fishing for grubs often take primates and birds months and years to become competant at. Blake is taking quite an extreme position against anecdotal data. I’m fairly confident from what people are saying in this thread that some dogs are quite good at recognising their names in a sentence. However, I would treat with a degree of scepticism how good they actually are at this. A proper scientific test would isolate variables and take measures to eliminate false positives. Does the dog only respond to it’s owners voice? Is it responding to any other cues? Does it respond to a variety of voices? To recordings? What range of intonations will it accept? > [@John\_DiFool](#): > > The 2nd quote is notable in that it strongly suggests that simplistic all-or-none approach (which, in the case of this thread takes the form of “either animals grasp the essence of the words communicated to them” vs. “they are just conditioned automatons with absolutely no deeper comprehension”) may not be optimal and may end up leaving a lot out of the explanation derived. I don’t think anyone is suggesting this though. Dogs can be conditioned to respond to commands, but they don’t always obey them. Pavlov’s dogs may have salivated at the sound of a bell, but I bet there was less drool to collect if they had just eaten a rack of ribs. ---
**Author:** ![ch4rl3s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c4cdca/32.png) [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/105 "2011-04-14T13:57:17Z")
Koko the gorilla not only knew her own name, she asked for a pet cat and named it herself. (she called it All Ball.) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All\_Ball](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Ball) ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/106 "2011-04-16T07:37:59Z")
I am surprised no one has mentioned this recent paper, in which researchers fairly carefully characterized the language capabilities of a border collie and concluded it “understood” that words referred to specific objects and classes of object, among other things, demonstrating behavior that cannot be explained by simple conditioning. This dog was named “Chaser”. > **[Border collie comprehends over 1,000 object names](https://phys.org/news/2011-01-border-collie-comprehends.html)** > > Researchers at Wofford College discovered that a Border Collie comprehends the names of over 1000 objects, differentiating between names of objects and orders to fetch them. This research deepens the findings of researchers in Germany, who had... A link to the study itself is at the end of that article. Having found this myself a few weeks ago, it makes the arrogant certainty of certain people in this thread rather amusing. It’s a peer-reviewed journal article, Blake, “Border collie comprehends object names as verbal referents”, what do you say about that? ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/107 "2011-04-16T10:07:10Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > This dog was named “Chaser”. > > [Border collie comprehends over 1,000 object names](http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-border-collie-comprehends.html) Here is a video I found on [YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWwYb-w34zU), which shows some of the tests. There are too many cuts to get a good idea of the dog’s true abilities, but regardless it is still very impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/108 "2011-04-16T21:58:29Z")
I found the PDF of the actual paper available for free from the author’s website and read it last night. This seems to be exactly what you wanted, **Blake** , I hope you stop by to comment on it. The link is: [http://webs.wofford.edu/reidak/Pubs/Pilley%20and%20Reid%202011.pdf](http://webs.wofford.edu/reidak/Pubs/Pilley%20and%20Reid%202011.pdf) Experiment 2 is relevant to this thread. Here are some excerpts: > [@](#): > > Recall that in the Rico study (Kaminski et al., 2004), Bloom (2004) was not convinced that words for Rico conveyed reference – that labels actually referred to objects, independent from the mean- ing of an associated command. For example, when Rico was told to “fetch sock,” did Rico comprehend that the label “sock” referred to a specific object and separately comprehend that the word “fetch” meant that he should produce a specific behavior involving that specific object? If Rico actually treated the label “sock” as a com- mand to “fetch sock” only, then it would not be evidence that he understood reference … If so, then Rico’s word learning may have little to do with language learning as exhibited by humans … > > In essence, Bloom’s concern addresses the question as to whether Rico understood that the phrase “fetch sock” represented two independent morphemes – that objects are independent in meaning from the activity requested that involved that object. Thus, the primary purpose of Experiment 2 was to test whether Chaser treats the name of an object independent in meaning from the given command. A secondary purpose of the study was to investigate Chaser’s ability to combine nouns and commands and demonstrate understanding of the combination of the two words, even though the command and noun had never been used in combination prior to the testing condition. > … > In order to demonstrate that command–noun combinations were indeed two independent units of meaning, Chaser was asked to produce appropriate behaviors when three different commands (take, paw, and nose) were randomly combined with three different objects (Lips, ABC, Lamb) across 14 independent trials in a double- blind procedure. None of the three objects had previously been paired with any of the three commands. To guarantee indepen- dent and random selection of each object and each command, the three objects and three commands were each assigned different numbers, and a table of random numbers was used to select each object and each command for each of the 14 trials. > … > The three cloth objects were placed upon a soft pad (1.5- m long) positioned about 38 cm apart in a row, 1.5-m in front of and parallel to a vertical cloth barrier. The cloth barrier (1-m high and 1.4-m wide) separated the experimenter from the objects, and the experimenter knelt behind the barrier before giving Chaser instructions and until the trial was over. Neither Chaser nor the experimenter could see the other during execution of the choice task, and the experimenter could not see which object was selected nor the actual command carried out. A confederate, seated 4.3 m from the objects, was able to observe Chaser’s behavior and sig- nal to the experimenter (by silently waving her hand) that the trial was over. Neither the experimenter nor the confederate measured the accuracy of Chaser’s behavior or the object selected. The con- federate was used only to indicate when the trial was over, since the experimenter could not see Chaser during the trial. When each trial ended, the experimenter called out “Good dog!” (independent of the accuracy of Chaser’s behavior), thus terminating the trial for Chaser and beginning a brief play session with a rubber ball. Play between trials was essential in order to maintain interest in the assigned tasks. > … > The entire testing session was videotaped with sound record- ing (available as online supplemental material). Three independent raters were recruited to measure independently the accuracy of each command and the accuracy of each object selected. We read them a definition of the actions required for each command, but explained that their judgment was final. > … > Each rater first watched the videotape with the sound turned off (so the rater could not know which instructions were given to Chaser), and recorded which command was actually executed towards which object. Once all 14 trials were rated, the rater then watched each trial again with the sound turned on in order to assess whether Chaser’s behavior accurately matched the command and object instructed by the experimenter. Inter-rater reliability was assessed. > … > Inter-rater reliability for the three raters across the 14 trials for both commands and objects was 100%. All raters judged Chaser to be 100% accurate across the 14 trials, performing the correct com- mand to the correct object as instructed. > … > \*\* > Not only did Chaser demonstrate that she ascribed indepen- dent meanings to commands and names, she also demonstrated that she could combine the two meanings accurately without explicit training to do so. None of the three objects had been paired previously with any of the three commands prior to this experi- ment, and she never received differential reinforcement for correct pairings (even during testing). Chaser had received extensive expe- rience with these three commands directed toward other familiar objects, but she was able to combine these novel command–noun phrases accurately on the first trial without additional training (perhaps due to response generalization). Thus, after learning the meanings of the commands and the nouns, Chaser was able, as do children, to understand the novel combination of two-word phrases. > … > Chaser did not require special training before producing the appropriate response when the three commands (take, paw, nose) were paired with the three names (Lips, Lamb, ABC). Because Chaser had previous learned the meaning of the three commands and the names of the three objects, she was able to respond cor- rectly, even on the first trial, when each of the three commands and the three nouns were randomly paired together in verb–noun phrases – demonstrating “combinatorial understanding” of two- word phrases. Chaser was able to understand the combination of the two words and behave appropriately in each trial, even though these commands and nouns had never been used in combination. > \*\* This seems pretty clear to me. Chaser is an otherwise unremarkable border collie obtained from an ordinary breeder. An equally interesting read is Experiment 3, in which they conclude Chaser learned the names for categories of objects that she already knew specific names for (e.g. “ball”, “frisbee”, etc.) and could retrieve one of those objects based on the category name as well. “Who’s a smart good girl? Chaser is, yes she is!” ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/109 "2011-04-16T23:03:06Z")
> [@Absolute](#): > > \ > This seems pretty clear to me. Chaser is an otherwise unremarkable border collie obtained from an ordinary breeder. > \ There has never been an unremarkable border collie! 🙂 (I’m a fan of border collies.) ---
**Author:** ![enigmatic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@enigmatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigmatic)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2011, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/110 "2011-04-16T23:12:01Z")
I think one issue here may be that dog’s vary enormously in capability. I’ve certainly owned or known dog’s that don’t respond in the ways indicated in this thread (including “smart” breeds such as border collie). But I’ve also seen the behaviour of our last dog Dusty who repeatedly 1. Responded to his name when used in a different context and neutral tone by people who were oblivious to his presence in the room (his sister also did this) 2. Responded appropriately to commands that he had not been trained to follow and _consistently_ respond to conversational topics that involved him, often involving only words that he wasn’t trained to respond to. 3. Enact what seemed to be systematic and considered planned behaviour towards a goal. It was difficult to get a firm handle on what he could do because he showed no interest in language that wasn’t directly relevant to him (and was notorious for his tendency to treat commands as suggestions :D) But where it was relevant to him his behaviour was _entirely_ consistent with his understanding a substantial vocabulary of words. ---
**Author:** ![M.Roachi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/fbc32d/32.png) [@M.Roachi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/M.Roachi)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/111 "2014-03-08T22:29:40Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The difficulty is that you are confusing “recognise their own name” with “respond to a specific sound”. > > Pretty much any animal that can hear human speech can be trained to respond to a specific sound. It doesn’t matter one bit whether that sound is the name you assigned it or two bells ringing. It’s been done with cats, seals, parrots, horses, dolphins, bears, lions, chimpanzees and possums to my certain knowledge. It is such a basic example of operant conditioning that I can’t think of any mammal or bird for which it would not work. > > None of this is in any way indicative that these animals recognise their names. The animals, including your dog, have all have been conditioned that when they hear that sound they will be either punished or rewarded, and so they respond to the sound. That is all their is to it. Their is not a shred of evidence that they recognise the sound as their name, or even that they have any concept that such a thing as a name exists. > > The interesting thing is that you claim that your dog reacts when her name is mentioned. But in fact she does not, she only reacts to a very specific sound said in a very specific way. That is why she does not react when you casually mention her name in conversation with another person. She reacts to the word said with emphasis and usually a rising inflection. If it isn’t said in that way she ignores it. > > Some animals will almost certainly be better than others at detecting sound differences within human speech so, for example, many animals won’t be able to distinguish “Tiger” and “Diver”, but they will respond to either said in the same way precisely because they are responding to the sound. None of them are very good and all will only respond to very specific sounds, including the right inflection and emphasis. None of them has ever been shown to respond to words as opposed to sounds. I made an account just to reply to this uneducated comment. Just FYI, there are many animals that actually name their offspring ---
**Author:** ![Questioning\_more](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7bcc69/32.png) [@Questioning\_more](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Questioning_more)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/112 "2014-03-09T00:15:55Z")
Like some of the early replies mentioned the problem is what you OP are seeking to get answered. Many, many animals can obviously respond to a sound. The general problem in identifiying if animals are self-aware or just aware, if they can solve problem or if they just learn from prior mistakes/repetition is an endless issue among zoologists. If you want to know if they can identify with their name you must establish several of things: 1. They can respond to a specific sound. 2. They are aware of themselves. 3. They can connect their self-awarness to a sound and identify with it (how would you prove this?) edit: Some apes I think have pointed to themselves, saying their names. But how can you show that they don’t consider this to be a game? ---
**Author:** ![madrabbitwoman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c37758/32.png) [@madrabbitwoman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madrabbitwoman)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/113 "2014-03-09T09:18:19Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Ehr, no. I’m 100% sure that I would not be able to recognize which word is a noun if I heard someone speaking Tutsi or Mandarin. > > And “recognizing that this particular sound means something is about to happen to me” works for me as equivalent to “recognizing its name”. You don’t have to know what a name is in order to recognize it, babies do it all the time way before knowing what names and nouns are. Okie dokie - I have had one rabbit who - recognised that the particular sound - in this case “Sharon” - meant something was about to happen to her. Thankyou Nava ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/114 "2014-03-09T12:10:47Z")
Anecdotally, I have a cat named Hope. I live alone, except for my cats, and I made the remark recently, “I hope this weather warms up soon.” Just talking to myself, really. But Hope, who had been napping in front of the fireplace, raised her head and meowed. She heard her name in my remark, and responded. It’s an anecdote, and those are never data. But Hope did respond to a sentence that contained her name. Not sure what this anecdote is worth, but there you go. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/115 "2014-03-09T12:49:43Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The interesting thing is that you claim that your dog reacts when her name is mentioned. **But in fact she does not** , … You do not know that is a fact; you know, I assume, that many studies indicated otherwise. These studies may be credible; we don’t know, because we haven’t read them, because you haven’t linked to them. What you have done is made a condescending as well as inaccurate statement designed to get someone’s back up. I do not think that the most effective means for sharing information. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/116 "2014-03-09T12:59:29Z")
I remember a study with tamarin monkeys that suggested they have some of the same cognitive building blocks for language that humans do. A series of linguistic tests that have been given to human infants, children, and adults was given to the tamarins and they displayed a similar ability recognize sounds that formed words out of a stream of words with no pauses between them. In other words humans can recognize what makes up individual words and what makes up syllables within a word by recognizing repeating patterns in a language - even without a pause between the words and even not knowing the language we’re listening to. It is theorized that some non-human primates possess the same ability. That means they most probably can hear their own name in a sentence unrelated to them. Anecdotally I know my dogs can. I would expect non-human primates to be even better at it. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/117 "2014-03-09T13:52:11Z")
> [@M.Roachi](#): > > I made an account just to reply to this uneducated comment. Just FYI, there are many animals that actually name their offspring Care to elaborate? With proof? ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/118 "2014-03-09T15:43:28Z")
> [@saje](#): > > Care to elaborate? With proof? Not sure if this is what they were referring to, but both [dolphins](http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/dolphins-call-each-other-by-name-130219.htm)and [parrots](http://www.geekosystem.com/parrot-parents-name-babies/) have what could be considered names. Parrots assign these names to their young by making specific, distinct vocalizations that the young learn to mimic. This identifies them to the parent from a distance and allows them to recognize a parent calling to them. In the case of dolphins the young create their own signature whistles innately which are then mimicked by the parents or others close in their social circles when they become separated. In both cases there is a two-way communication going on that is the equivalent of having a name and recognizing it when it is called. ---
**Author:** ![Vaevictis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f04885/32.png) [@Vaevictis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vaevictis)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/119 "2014-03-09T16:27:41Z")
Amazing thread, thanks Blake. Astonishing how much ignorance is out there and how hard it is to fight it. ---
**Author:** ![Gretchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8edcca/32.png) [@Gretchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gretchion)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040/120 "2014-03-09T17:36:31Z")
Ahh, now we come to the real question: Do zombies recognize their given names? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-non-human-animals-recognize-their-human-given-name/578040.md?page=7)