Do animals understand words? 2017 CHRISTMAS LECTURES with Sophie Scott 3/3

What is language and how close do other animals come to having it? Dogs can be very good at following our commands, but do they actually understand any of the words we use? -- Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Watch more CHRISTMAS LECTURES here: https://www.youtube.com/show/VLPLbnrZHfNEDZxqZEF6PDCLUq1OE6lJW5PQ?sbp=KgthQXh2eElPd25XTUAB --- Birds are the only other species that can say human words and Sophie Scott reveals how humans and birds share some common brain functions that make this possible. She also shows what happens when this section of our brain cannot function properly. But are birds simply mimicking us or can they comprehend anything of the human words they can be trained to utter? Language isn't just a power to combine words. Sophie explores how we convey a huge amount of information through the tone of voice, our accents and the pace and pitch of our speech. In a world when we regularly talk to computers, she also shows why scientists need to develop machines that can understand the subtleties of our speech to be able to fully comprehend human language. --- The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter --- #Language #HumanLanguage #ScienceOfLanguage #LanguageAndTheBrain #SpeechPerception #ToneOfVoice #CommunicationScience #AnimalCommunication #BirdLanguage #LanguageEvolution #Neuroscience #SpeechAndCommunication #WordMeaning #HowWeUnderstandLanguage #SophieScott