Comment by nuchi on Your Dog is Even Smarter Than You Think · 2021-05-03T23:18:19.407Z · LW · GW

Anyone have any particular intuition for whether a dog would be likely to be able to learn to use a device that combined phonemes as its basic constituent parts, rather than entire words?

I'm working on a device that affords this possibility. I have a functional prototype that is mouth-held and -operated; it uses a pressure sensor (measuring bite) and gyro/accelerometer to produce (at the moment) a limited selection of vowels and consonants; they can be varied by moving the head around and biting down.

My inspiration is these button boards together with the intuition that some of the main obstacles to language production are the physical machinery, and also a fast feedback loop.

I do not have custody of a dog and have had limited opportunities to test thus far.