FILE – How artificial intelligence helps make fishing more sustainable
A recently published AI algorithm has been used to estimate coastal fish stocks in the Western Indian Ocean with 85% accuracy. (Courtesy of the Wildlife Conservation Society)
ANN ARBOR, Michigan – Researchers at the University of Michigan are studying how artificial intelligence technology can be used to understand a dog’s communication.
Scientists are developing tools to distinguish whether a dog’s barking is a sign of playful or aggressive behavior. They also want to gather more information about the dog’s vocalizations, such as its age, breed and gender.
“By using speech processing models originally trained on human speech, our research opens a new window into how we can leverage what we’ve built so far in speech processing to begin to understand the nuances of dog barks,” said Rada Mihalcea, director of UM’s AI Lab.
The researchers studied the vocalizations of 74 dogs in different contexts.
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Researchers have developed AI software that can distinguish between a playful and aggressive dog bark, as well as determine breed, gender and age based on the sound. (Adobe Stock)
The study found that AI models initially trained on human speech can be used as a starting point for training new systems targeting animal communication.
“There is still so much we don’t know about the animals that share this world with us,” Mihalcea adds. “Advances in artificial intelligence have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of animal communication, and our findings suggest we may not need to start from scratch.”
Mihalcea said their findings indicate that sounds and patterns from human speech can form the basis for examining and understanding the acoustic patterns of other sounds, including animal vocalizations.
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However, the development of AI to analyze animal vocalizations is hampered by a lack of publicly available data, the researchers said.
“Animal vocalizations are much more difficult to solicit and record, logistically,” says Artem Abzaliev, lead author of the study. “They have to be recorded passively in the wild or, in the case of domestic animals, with the permission of the owners.”
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Have you ever wished you could understand what your dog was trying to tell you? (Adobe Stock)
The scientists were able to reuse a human speech analysis model that allowed them to leverage robust speech technologies that recognize spoken words and speakers.
“These models are able to learn and encode the incredibly complex patterns of human language and speech,” Abzaliev notes. “We wanted to see if we could harness this ability to discern and interpret dog barks.”
This new research also has important implications for animal welfare, the study says. Understanding canine vocalizations could greatly improve how humans interpret and respond to dogs’ needs, improving their care and preventing dangerous situations.
