Can This CAT Talk USING Buttons?! 

I was obviously unimpressed by Billi Speaks. However, I was completely blown away by the Navy's dolphin program. I interviewed one of their trainers here → ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sdFCZOIbh4A.html

I'm also a biologist and also a huge skeptic of owners when they anthropomorphize their pets. But that being said, there's something about Billi's button pushing that I suspect would satisfy any significance testing you'd like to throw at it. And, at 13, she's not a spring chicken so this isn't just a curious kitten investigating buttons. There's plethora videos of Billi reacting to noises (which she hates) or actually trying to formulate rudimentary expressions. Basically, this cat warrants further observations. And last time you made your mind up after one video... To be fair, you didn't just pick one video this time, you seem to have picked 2. So, kudos on doubling the effort (insofaras watching 3 minutes of 2 videos can be classified as "effort") but maybe you could step outside of your preconceptions (read: refutation bias) and actually watch a few more before jumping to a conclusion?

love this marine biologist getting cat behavior wrong

So, a couple things worth pointing out. You were talking about pushing the button and showing the item or whatever to create association. This is how the training begins. You then expressed confusion at the owner pressing buttons. It's a repetition before the association, usually. In other words, if the cat presses the outside button, when you get a moment to do that thing, you press the button, then go outside, confirming the association. I would also point at the moments where I'm picking up expectation on the cat's part, after a button. That said, I haven't really got a clue how the abstract stuff comes in. It's also worth noting that the animals are definitely not "learning English". They're learning uninformed relationships, only.

Why did you only watch videos from the first year of her training? Her newer videos are much better. Billi is very deliberate with her words so it's much easier to know what she wants.

Cat: Ears back, neck tight, tail lashes Marine Biologist: that's not an angry cat. Me: ... Well, maybe that's why she's a MARINE Biologist...

My 14 year old cat doesn’t have buttons but clearly understands a large amount of English. I also believe Billi is purposely communicating and I have watched almost all of her videos.

Honestly, it sounds like KPassionate is bias and a bit proud of her professional skills in working with animals. Giving animals buttons is another form of communication and isn't hurting anyone. Simply saying it's just button mashing and confirmation bias is discounting the intelligence of other animals. KPassionate also seems to be a bit condensing and harsh with her judgement.

Billie, Bunny, and around 700 other animals are enrolled in a study at the Comparative Cognition Lab at UC San Diego are numerous animals involved in the study . It all started when Christina Hunger, a speech language pathologist , decided to employ an AAC device , typically used by nonverbal people to communicate without speech. These videos are just for entertainment , maybe you could look up a teaching video at the University to explain the protocols and procedures defined in the study.

This is a very unscientific analysis of something you’re claiming isn’t scientific.

5:00 Cat owners know what an angry cat looks like and it IS this. Billi's not that angry, 'annoyed' would be more accurate. You go on and on about body language and behavioral cues, but you miss the dead giveaway of those ears rotated back. BEFORE the word 'anger' came onscreen, i looked at her and thought "welp now she's annoyed." Although sometimes cats ears will do this when not annoyed, more often than not whenever my cats did this it was because they were irritated

You need to watch the most recent and go backwards. Some are popular because of their titles but not the best example - Billi is learning and expanding her vocabulary- I’m a speech and language pathologist- I believe what is seen is her growing in understanding what these random sounds mean. B) Cats express things like annoyance and anger much more subtlety than the fierce often scared / defensive poses you call anger. C) my cats know not to eat or Harass my birds, miniature chickens, and even little chicks - while they try to hunt other birds. They can distinguish between the “owned birds” and the “wild birds.” 10:20 cats can discriminate much more subtly than you give credit to D) the human is a Zoo Keeper and there ARE videos about repetition and how and why buttons are taught and expanded on. Your lack of research and jumping to assumptions make me wonder how scientific you are E) can you really compare your knowledge of marine life to an animal like a cat? You don’t seem aware of the subtleties of feline expression. So how much expression does coral have? A parrot fish? Even a dolphin? I just could go on. And yes in the beginning I was dubious however - watching Billi run to the door when her owner comes home - greets her - and then deliberately crosses the room, picks her way over other buttons and very firmly pressed HELLO. Makes me feel, as a specialist in language acquisition,) that as I have seen for myself the owner spoke/modeled the use of “sound” we call the word Hello in English - Billi gets its use as a greeting. And as is natural expands her receptive vocabulary into an expressive one. I doubt if I’ll ever watch another if your videos based on such random pseudo science you employed. If you are going to talk as a subject matter expert then research and become throughly knowledgeable of your subject. P.S. I’m not even a “cat” person but can tell when a cat is mad or frustrated- I don’t need to put it into the extreme expressions - and expressions most usually used by cats to communicate fear, dominance, ferocity to OTHER CATS. People for example can show annoyance through many subtle muscles in our face - they don’t need to yell at you. But I suppose mangrove snappers aren’t like that? Do you get scratched a lot by cats? I am also a specialist on Bi-lingual language acquisition and use versus a deficit in the a brains ability to learn language or it’s nuances. Such as what we mean when we say idioms like the “ Judge threw the book at him.” And I see Billi learning and trying out language the way an English speaker might try Japanese.” Or an African language with clicking. Or Chinese when a words meaning can change simply depending on tone. Ugh. I’ll stop but boy did you ever completely make up assumptions, did not look for a quantitive sample, watch the experiment’s timeline. I have made my own assumptions - it’s click hairy if you, not any kind of true reporting and I’m betting you know little about communication in advanced land mammals. Forgive my typos everyone, typing with one finger on a small phone when I’m very tired. I was just so taken a back by the trash value of the video I just watched - I had to make my first negative comment to a RU-vid video.

She just hating cause she doesn't understand modeling words and the thought pattern with animals

All I can say is, if that cat didn't look upset to you, I'm not sure you know cat body language.

Sorry, but I have to jump in here: I'm a Vet and a cat owner and these"airplane" ears are a definite expression of annoyance/ negative emotion/ anger. The pictures you showed depict scared and belligerent cats. Big difference.

The one video I watched with the dad being gone and the cat keep asking for him seems pretty telling to me. To many coincidences to not be a pattern.

While I think it’s hard for Billi to completely understand what the buttons mean and how to use it, I think she understands to some extent. There was one video where she accidentally hit a button with her hind leg while walking, and she turned around to press the “oops” button. If she really didn’t have ANY idea of what the buttons meant, she wouldn’t have pressed “oops” since she had no reason to. I think this video shows concrete proof that Billi understands she made a mistake, and turns around to press a button to tell her owner. Link to the video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CENVRHdnMl4.html Honestly I understand where you’re coming from, people do extrapolate, but I am sure that you can’t 100% deny that Billi is capable of communication with her owner. It’s obvious she understands somewhat, and I don’t see how “impossible” it is for an animal to learn what a button means and how to use it. If animals can learn to come when called (they can learn their own name), or to perform tricks, then why can’t they learn a word and use it themselves?

Billee's mom does train her on each button. There are videos showing how she introduces new buttons to the cat. And, yes, there are times when Billie is confused.

You said that you don't see the owner back up and say "Okay, the pet is confused" but Bili's owner does that constantly and waits for her to reassess- sometimes for tens of minutes in sped-up footage. It's also worth noting that while Bili's owner tries to hide her identity, she is clearly some sort of veterinarian with years of experience and a deep understanding of operant conditioning. She might not be perfect, but dismissing her efforts as delusional after watching 3-5 minutes of videos she posted for views seems a little reductive.

As someone who has taught my dog to use talking buttons I would like to remark specifically on your comment about the videos just being of animals hitting a bunch of buttons on a board and that if we wanted to teach our animals that a specific button had specific meaning we would place that button next to its meaning. I get that you are responding to random videos that followers told you to watch so just so you know.. there are days and days and weeks of a single button next to its intended purpose before an animal gets a board. We started by modeling potty by the front door and each individual button has been introduced on its own before being added to a board which grows over time. As far as humans having to read into what the animal wants based on the button pressing.. what would you have us do..? When a two year old strings a group of words together you have to figure it out as best you can right? From what I understand dogs specifically have the equivalent mind of about a two year old. If the plan is to give them a different way of communicating to accompany the non verbal communication they already show then should we just ignore them unless they string together a perfect and complete sentence..? Would that help a 2 year old human learn? It’s been proven scientifically through MRI scans of dogs brains that they experience similar emotions to humans, you’ve said yourself that they are smart so I don’t see why it’s such a leap to attempt to communicate with them in a different way than just reading their body language. Also in your first video where bunny pushes “hungry” after eating. By your logic I should give my dog food every time he begs but anyone who studies dog behavior knows that a dog will continue begging for food long past the point of being full bc evolution has ingrained in them from years of hunting and only eating once a day and then not for several at times that they should eat at any given opportunity for survival not just when they are hungry. Sometimes what they want and what they need are different things unfortunately. I would love to give my 15lb dog as many treats as he wants whenever he wants but you know.. obesity.. So yes, they can press what they want all day but it doesn’t always get them what they want. Also, no one knows their specific pet better than their owner. I may not be able to tell you how someone else’s pet shows anger or sadness or not wanting to be bothered unless it’s super obvious like you said hissing or nipping but I can tell you what you can do to avoid those things with my specific dog. Yes all animals have a non verbal way of communicating but not all animals are the same.

I don't think you've watched enough Billi. That cat is a trip and I believe she understands a lot. Maybe not everything, but way more than you give her credit for. *Mad*

Billi's latest video is fascinating. Her mum is on a conference call and ignoring Billi so Billi selects the buttons "all done" and "TV." TV isn't a button she uses often and you see her actually sniffing the buttons and looking at them to try and find the one she wanted. Also the fact that she called her mum's laptop "TV" is absolutely impressive!

I wouldn't have said Billi was angry, but she did look annoyed. With her ears back like that, she was either annoyed or there was a sound behind her that caught her attention.

That's an annoyed cat, that's what they look like.

Having followed this channel for months now and watched close to all the videos, I can say that this cat can and does use the buttons to communicate. The videos show progression over more than a year during which time the cat becomes more capable with the buttons. The owner is a vet, working for a zoo. My specialty is child development. The cat is using the buttons at a level equivalent to an 18 month to 2 yr old child. Therefore, you will see mostly short, one or two button, sequences. They primarily express the cat's wishes - generally food or playtime. As with child/adult communication, plenty must be interpolated by the owner. I have seen as many as five button sequences, but these are rare. The cat seems able to put buttons together to express a concept she does not have a button for. Again, not a daily occurrance. The cat remains a cat. Therefore, frequent occasions of manipulation (offering cuddle and then quickly changing to food) which is not surprising to those who know cats. Is the cat's thinking equivalent to that of the toddler? Probably not. But I find it clear that some cats are capable, given the tools, of fairly complex communication.

Cats are one of the only animals that has developed sounds ONLY for human communication. Cats don't meow at each other yet cats have been shown to produce over 30+ different meows only used towards humans.

I wouldn't agree that the most popular videos are the ones that "most represent their case" because the most popular videos are short and funny, they'e not about "proving" anything. Bunny's human mentioned that the full video data gets sent to the research team they work with, although I don't think their conclusions would change people's interest either way. Christina Hunger, who pioneered the buttons with her dog Stella, emphasizes that the goal is better communication, even if you don't use buttons - paying to how they're already communicating with us.

There is one episode where the cat presses the “love you” and then gives the slow blink. I don’t know if that was just awesome timing or what.

The training videos show how the associations are made between the button word and the concept. The Instagram videos are for viewer entertainment not to train or show what the words mean. I agree that you showed examples of confirmation bias, but I don't agree with your overall assessment. I think you have to watch over a period of time to get that each critter develops their own use of words with their people. I don't see why it's so difficult to believe. I mean are you also suggesting that Koko the gorilla was unable to sign? Any pet owner knows that their pets learn some English words. You say "leash" and the dog grabs the leash, you say "sit" and the dog sits. Why wouldn't the inverse be true? Why is it such a stretch that a dog might press a "walk" button rather than grabbing the leash and dragging it out to the living room and barking? For example, my rabbit reversed Pavlov on me and trained me to feed him when he rings a bell. I started feeding him because I assumed he was hungry when I heard it and he started ringing the darn thing at 5am every morning. Is there such a difference between him ringing a bell and pressing a "food" button? If you really want to disprove this phenomenon, try teaching an animal to use speech buttons. See what happens if you provide something other than what they request. Most of the animals on these social media channels respond by going back and repeatedly pressing the button for the item they wanted or by pressing a negative emotion button like "mad."

I think everyone who watches animals use word buttons understands that there is possible confirmation bias, but also can't completely rule out the possibility of the sequence of buttons having at least some meaning.

The only confirmation bias I see around here is coming from you, K. Confirmation bias and Strawman fallacy. I see your communication in the comments section here and I see your responses in the video itself, and it's pretty clear. You have no idea what you're talking about because you're basing your opinion on very little information. You evidently formed your own opinions in advance, and are busy looking for signs that support your theory, without giving any serious consideration to what you're actually watching (if you could even call it "watching", considering how often you're stopping the videos so that you can scoff and huff and puff). The cat, for example, remembers the LOCATION of the buttons and that's how it knows what each button means. NOT based on the drawing or text on it or even the sound that it makes. If you'd have watched more videos you'd see how most of the time the cat doesn't even look at the buttons when pressing, and sometimes even presses on them using its hind legs while 'casually walking past', even though the meaning of the button pressed makes perfect sense within the context of the interaction. If the owner had moved the buttons around, it would cause a lot of confusion for the cat, and maybe thrown months or even years of training into the trash. The owner can be seen TRAINING the cat in these videos by REINFORCING the use of the buttons by pressing on them and verbalizing them. This is TRAINING and must be not much different than the sort of training you should be familiar with as a marine biologist (such as hand signals and vocal commands and whatnot). This is training by association and repetition and it takes a lot of time. No one said that these pets "learn language" or that they're capable of "constructing complex sentences" or that they're "pet philosophers". You're completely missing the point. These buttons are simply a tool of communication for them, reinforced through months and years of training and repetition. The intellect of these pets doesn't reach much higher than that of a 3yo toddler. But it's still very impressive. Again: These buttons are TOOLS of COMMUNICATION. The pet learns their meaning by repetition and association. It's nothing fancy, but also definitely nothing to scoff at. Anyways, based on how you've interacted with other "negative" comments here, you're probably going to dismiss what I say with some pretentious hand-wavey response that supposedly shows how much better you are than me. I don't mind. I'm not here for my ego. I just had to get this off my chest because it is an insult to science to see the way you behave here. Somebody had to say this to you. Have a great week.

WHAT?! Your "research" was ONE VIDEO?! Please get the phrase "scientific method" out of your mouth. You only watched ONE "talking dog" video, used it to generate the hypothesis that dogs can't use syntax and everyone is full of nothing but confirmation bias, and just... Called it a wrap and smugly made a video without testing your hypothesis? Um... If you don't see the irony, I think we need to take away the big words like confirmation bias until you're ready for them. We've all heard the Clever Hans lecture, so thank God we didn't get that, I guess

Just crossing over to this video from the other video from your comment. As someone whose career it includes a whole lot of sitting down and reading rather biased and often low quality research papers (even at journals and conferences!) to sift through the crap and debias the authors' intents from the actual results themselves -- it's hard for me to absorb the arguments made here. There's a lot of logical fallacies here, including appeal to possibility/probability. There's also a lot of bias and it seems pretty clear that you already have made up your mind on a topic before approaching it, because the evidence presented is already interpreted through that entropy-collapsed lense of personal bias (which is a huge red flag to me in any paper/presentation -- I need data, not personal beliefs). I hope this doesn't feel like an attack or deep personal criticism from what it may feel like the other video was doing -- but it is a stern statement of discomfort in terms of methodology and approach, and I'm doing a much lighter job of sugarcoating it than I usually do. I came here hoping for a video that was a little more neutral in terms of looking at the evidence (Todd Grande comes to mind stylistically), and I think I see myself honestly watching videos in the future that you could make on this, so there's some personal selfish gain for me to be had in potentially moving the needle with how neutral your presentations may or may not be. That's one personal bias on my side, and I hope to check in in the future and see some more scientific detachment from these issue in those videos (and I think that much of your audience could too!) In any case, back to the matter at hand -- I think good discussion on both sides is helpful, but this is a pretty biased perspective I think that doesn't keep the benefit of the doubt in mind, and thus I think creates a separate camp disjoint from the people with observational biases with these pets (and that does little to answer the underlying question). We have good tools for debiasing these things, and I think if we're making arguments that this is just attention-mediated behavior, then I think putting it forward as a hypothesis rather than a one-and-done "here's the solution" video helps expand the argument a bit better. I just get frustrated watching this because I think we can do better, if we're scientists, let's please present our information in a scientific manner. Best of care -- FB&co.

What you described as a cat being angry is NOT what a cat is like when they’re angry. Upset behavior in cats is presented with ears pulled back, tail flicking, sometimes they’ll vocalize or growl. What you’re describing is a cat who is experiencing pain or fear and is lashing out in aggression. It’s kind of obvious you just googled angry cat behavior because I got the exact same description you mentioned from just googling it. Just because you’re a marine biologist, doesn’t mean you understand domestic animal behavior. Look, it’s fine to be skeptical about this because it seems like there needs to be research into it. I’m not going to dismiss it outright until we have more evidence. As a fellow scientist you should be open to the possibility there’s something more going on. It seems like maybe you should check your own biases. This is classic Dunning-Kruger.

Arched back, hissing and puffed-up hair are signs of a scared cat, not an angry one. While some bias is most likely present in the talking pets' owner's perspective, here it seems there is a case of skepticism bias. To follow the scientific method properly, you need to let go of biases not only for the theory but also against it.

Billi’s owner is a zoo vet. She also says she isn’t sure if the cat understands or doesn’t, or if the cat knows what she’s communicating. The research is fascinating, however, and I’m happy that an animal care specialist is participating.

so the cat was annoyed and not 'angry' as per your definition........

I think its worth noting that there was a whole year of time lap between the first and the last BilliSpeaks video shown here. I do think billi might not understand the words in English as we humans. But what is the most fascinating to me is my assumption that she can pack ideas into related words and pronounce them. Specially after seeing how her owner trained her to relate Morning/afternoon/night with the combo of the sense of time later/before/after. The concept of the cat able to communicate the sense of anticipation of passing time on a larger scale was very impressive to me. Do you think its possible that a socialized animal would be able to express in such a way after trainings that would link the animal with the sounds of words to human cultural?

Just a few minutes in and I gotta say, how is it you watch the least impressive of the lot? lol. I have to admit, when I first started watching them, I was iffy about it. But the MORE you watch, the more its is blatantly obvious, that there animals are talking/communicating with their people. There's one where Billi accidentally steps on a button with her back paw and it said, "want." She almost immediately pressed the "oops" button. Another, she pushed the button for the toy she likes, but "mom" was tired. So then Billi pressed "cuddle" and she cuddled for maybe a minute and then went back to the toy button, lol. It was so evident and "mom" also realized that this was a bargaining attempt, lol. Watch it, babe, watch a lot more of them. Because you're wrong. I just watched this one with a dog. This dog knew that its sister dog needed to go "potty." Sure enough, the other dog went/needed to go, the button-pushing dog did not. I've watched some now that are just incredibly impressive. Again, it's strange that you're somehow missing the impressive stuff. It's also kind of strange that you think your intelligence is so superior to all of these people doing this, that are actually experiencing it day after day. Funnily enough, these people have put in a lot of work (they aren't stupid), and I'm sure they would eventually have lost interest if it hadn't proven very fruitful. Additionally, many of the people watching aren't stupid, and THEY would have lost interest if they hadn't seen some very impressive communications by these animals. Maybe get over yourself just a wee dab? And do some real research on it. That is, watch a lot more videos. Talking Dog Buttons - Funniest, smartest, and BEST moments ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PnfnfdVRbU4.html Another that comes to mind. Billi pushes "noise"(they use for any sound) and then "water." It had just started to rain. Just a fluke? Um 'kay. How many "flukes" until you realize YOU are wrong.

I have watched a lot of Billi. Over time the communication has developed. The first video wasn't meant as a demonstration of great communication between them, it was a cats are moody/selfish joke. So you really only watched 1 video about the concept. Cuddle is actually something that Billi shows as wanting, I think that was the prompt for the video's meme title. Her owners model the behaviour, and press the buttons when communicating too. That makes sense. The notations are coming from the owners knowledge of their pet, in this case "anger" might have been a bit hyperbolic, but not so much. This isn't a documentary, it's a record of their journey. There have been many where there have been very contextual button presses. I was very sceptic early on, but over time there has been progression and depth in Billi's communication. There are videos where there is confusion on both parts, as you would expect at times. I don't think the animals are learning "to speak english" per se. But they are learning to communicate in a way that allows for more clarity as they learning to associate different buttons with different concepts. And Billi's owner is a veterinarian. She is not ignorant of animal behaviours. She doesn't make outlandish claims. If you read the about page on their website she acknowledges that they don't know the full depth of comprehension and meaning being achieved and that research is ongoing and not conclusive. It was also something started without any firm goals. They tried it out and it seems to be working.

This person may have never seen a cat before, lol she's used to marine mammals.

Those of us who have followed Billi over the years have seen how her communication has actually developed over time. when you watch it daily you see that she is communicating with more precision than what you seem to be finding. Your skepticism can't counteract the interactions I've observed daily for over a year.

Idk this cat pretty much acts exactly how I imagine a cat to act if it could talk. Nothing good will ever come from that 😂😂

Sorry, but being a behaviour expert and saying a cat needs to have a high back/puffed out fur as the only way to communicate as angry is very surprising. Billie turned her ears back. It was very clear she was irritated. The human putting "angry" there is logical. A cat only pulls out the high back when she feels endangered and/or truly furious (it tries to intimidated by looking bigger, to seem less like an easy prey). You're very, very biased. I'm aware of the bias theories and have done peer reviewed researches using the scientific method. What you're doing here isn't it. Also, you're association argument: the animals already learned what buttons are associated with what action. The video's you've shown are every day use video's, not training video's.

I personally am in the other camp, animals have a learning capability, why not use it to associate actions or emotions to a button that makes the sound of that word? I don't see anything inherently wrong with this, since it's just another form of learning like tricks. And for me, I'd stop believing when I see them consistently press buttons that don't represent what I'd imagine a cat with cat wants might say. I watch Billi a lot since it's an almost daily upload, and she seems to successfully use the buttons to direct the humans to her wants, and when they get it wrong she seems to say no or mad, of which seems more to be a catch-all for negative emotions rather then simply anger. I'm interested in what the results the research project Billi and Bunny are in report. It's all pretty cool I think.

The cat knows to press “ops” after they press the wrong button… coincidence? Maybe. I’m at the very least certain that Billie understand mad because every time she presses it her tail was wagging.

Billi: "Outside." Bunny: "Dream is sleep talk". Dick in video: Cats have more language ability then digs but both still definitely have zero!

She acts like they just threw a bunch of buttons out there and the cat started talking. It took a long time and a lot of training.

"OMG the animals are not constructing full sentences, this is a failure, shut it down." More cherry picking and another biased review. Maybe you are deflecting because this goes against what you were taught in college and on the job, which I saw a lot during my studies. Students and professors refusing to give up on old theories. After watching 30 hours of these types of videos, I believe the animals are actually communicating. The example of the "angry cat" is really just an annoyed cat, and doesn't disprove the cat being mad, because mad could be annoyed or angry. These buttons group words together to make them easier to learn, and you as a human have to unbox their meaning. Animals are not going to construct full sentences, communication can be simplified, which is partly how we read body language. Sure, you can just read body language, but that doesn't limit other forms of communication.

whether or not the animals actually understand what they're doing, only watching a few videos - especially out of order - isn't a good way to get an accurate feel for whether or not they can be trained to use buttons to communicate

I admit. I anthropomorphize the crap out of everything, but my cat has learned how to meow an impressive human sounding "Good Morning" to me on some mornings. Maybe he does it because it makes me laugh and give him ear skritches. Maybe he's been taking some online courses. Either way, I choose to believe that my cat occasionally greets me with a cheerful "Good morning."

I'm a child behaviorist and early education teacher and what you said about "recreating the words to make a sentence" is exactly how children learn language. I've worked with many non-verbal children and this is how they communicate. I'm not saying that this animals are speaking a language... only that they are communicating. Some children may say "car.. fast." or "milk" and point to their belly. They aren't creating sentences but they are communicating. I've actually used similar buttons to work with my non-verbal students.

Wait wait wait ...you devised an entire "hypothesis" off of one video (regarding Bunny)!!?!

My mind isn't really made up either way honestly, but as a recommendation for the future you're probably getting more negative reactions from people in the comments because of the amount of condescension you expressed. I've seen a lot of great videos taking apart a concept they were very straight when talking about the topic and not injecting much personal opinion that were much more convincing because the person explaining didn't come across as immediately biased. If you're trying to get people to change their minds on a topic you probably shouldn't scoff at the videos and act like it's an inconvenience that you have to watch more than one video from the person you are trying to criticize. If you don't want to make a video talking about something then don't.

I wonder how many dislikes this video got?

The cat does have an "oops" button, and she has pushed it after she had pushed the wrong button by mistake. The owner realised it too.

You need to watch more of her videos. Especially ones involving her dad. I am eager to hear your take on those.

This was an interesting video having just discovered Billie and only having seen 2 vids of that cat before coming here. I'm not a psychologist, but I do have a bachelors degree in Psychology and have always been interested in how that translates into other fields. I feel that is relevant because I have always had interesting relationships with my pets that include knowing their body language, different meows, patterns, and habits. I don't 100% agree that animals wouldn't be able to communicate with humans using non-traditional means because of 2 main theories: evolution, and adaptation. One dictates that animals change even to a cellular level to fit needs (breeding/cross-breeding for certain traits), the other says that, even if temporarily or in the presence of certain stimuli, we change behaviors in order to be less threatened or better understood. The cat knows the sounds come from the floor in these videos, but looks up to the owner after using them expecting either a treat or a response. The same way my cat yowls in different tones to get my attention to different things, or even learned to turn off the lightswitch because he would get a treat after. Both of these count as learning and can eventually lead to understanding even if the owner isn't 100% revealing all the work that was put in. In the owners mind, I'm sure they believe they are teaching and the cat is learning.

You need to watch more of the videos, especially seeing how far she has come. The human genuinely isn't sure if she understands the words but she does use them in context. They are also currently participating in a study. I don'tt know if these specificvideoss wererecommendedd or if you selected them but there are better clips. Cats hissing and arched are more defensive/scared than angry. I can tell when my cats are pissed off and Billi displays it the same.

So I watched both this video and the dog video and i find this to be a very interesting discussion topic. For starters, i completely agree tone and body movement are the basic form of communication for an animal. But at the same time, I have seen animal learn simple words. For example, my dog knows the word "WALK". It doesn't matter how i say it, i can be in normal conversation with someone and if that word is at all mentioned, she comes running with a look of anticipation. However, much like was mentioned, were talking simple words here. Mainly verbs and nouns like walk, treat, outside, play, cuddle, etc. Something the animal is constantly hearing. I can see this working on a one word command basis, where the animal does not need to push multiple buttons to form a sentence. An animal might be able to put something simple together like "cuddle tommy" (Tommy being a person) but i can't be sure with out being able to properly test this.

After watching this video, my conclusion is that you really are not a cat behaviour expert.

To be fair, I remember Billi's owner has a video where she talks about how she trains Billi to associate the various buttons with specific things. And she does seem to have very specific buttons that she likes to press, like the one for her fan toy. So it wouldn't totally surprise me if she's learned to associate a few buttons with a few very specific easy to understand things like the one for food or for her favorite toy. That's not to say she actually is picky about what she actually wants at any given moment, if she pressed the button for food and was shown her toy or given pets she probably wouldn't even care. But it's not out of the realm of possibility that when she actually wants food at a given moment and happens to see the button for food she goes and presses it because she's made that association. An interesting experiment would be to train a pet to fetch specific objects after button presses. I know there are dogs who know enough names of different specific toys that they can fetch individual toys on command, so it doesn't seem like a huge stretch to similarly train them to fetch the toy when they hear the same command from one of these buttons. Then extend that and see if there's a way to, say, give a command for the dog to press a random button, it presses it, and then when it hears the new command from that button fetches the corresponding object. Either way the abstract concept buttons for sure are really dubious, as well as how far ahead the pets are actually thinking when they're pressing the buttons.

An angry cat isn't the same as a scared cat.

I get where you are coming from here with the having to create a sentence from the words that the cat is pushing. However, adults do the same thing with children and adults with communication difficulties. What is that difference there? Also we know that primates can use ASL to communicate so is it that far of a stretch to say that a cat or dog could be taught through operant conditioning to use buttons? The reason that the human pushes the buttons it to help the cat learn the meaning of the buttons but providing an example and when I looked into Bili and her use of the word MAD I learned that Bilis owner taught her the word mad by pushing it when she did things like telling Bili she had to wait for food or couldn't go outside or moving her from her lap which are things that I can tell make my cat mad and he doesn't even have any buttons. Animals feel emotions so why is it not possible to express them using buttons? They can learn so many other tricks so I just don't really get it?

Again, there are statements here that are simply not true. 1- The buttons ARE in fact taught by creating associations one by one, paired with actions. That's a very basic part of it which owners tend to show on their channels (based on the methods hungerforwords, the dog owner on that channel who started the whole thing is a speech therapist), with Billi you can see that for example when she teaches her "scratch". 2- The owners often say that the animals are confused or that they are not sure what they are saying. I've seen that with Billi too. Sure, they might make assumptions and have human biases, but saying it never happens simply isn't true. It really just feels like you want to sell people your own conclusions here, while ignoring the facts. Also, of course humans have biases and often project their own thoughts and feelings onto the animals, we see that with nearly any animal videos, buttons or no buttons. But just because the methods or thought process is flawed also doesn't really demonstrate that everything about it is wrong or meaningless. Most of these people aren't scientists, and this isn't some experiment conducted in a lab. Nearly no one approaches these videos like this. I tend to ignore the owner's own interpretation in these video and observe the animal instead. That's the interesting part. Just because there are flaws doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned from these videos. Most people watch these videos with the same approach. You can see it if you take the time to read the comment section. People would debate with each other, or would suggest for example, different possible (emphasis on "possible", obviously not stated as facts, it's a thought exercise) meanings for certain buttons being used, and the owner would sometimes even respond that that is an interesting option. Most of these owners openly talk about their own biases and there's usually a speculative approach to it all by both owners and viewers. You are forgetting that the owners learn by observation too. They are people going through a new and unfamiliar process. And making mistakes is also natural. No one is saying they know with certainty what the animal is trying to express at all times. The problem seems to be that you think people are convinced and claim something with certainty, but nearly no one is doing that. You asked the viewers what would convince them it isn't true, but nearly no one is claiming it is or isn't true. People usually watch these with a curious approach, observing and speculating, not stating much as some known facts. Also, again, there isn't much in this video or the previous one that teaches us anything new, except for fairly well-known definitions. Many people understand concepts such as confirmation bias, but that seems to be all you are basing your views on. As I've said in my comment on the previous video, I approach those animal speech buttons videos fairly objectively, but you seem to add less to the discussion in your videos than the average commenters there.

I watched an episode where Billie learned about Morning, afternoon and night, already showing an understanding of before, after and later. I am 100% convinced this cat has been communicating well after watching many of these videos.

she started her cat on just a few buttons, like for food, simple stuff

I honestly didn't believe the cat could "talk" using buttons , but I gave it a go. The videos usually last a few minutes. Whilst the cat can't speak , I firmly believe the cat has an awareness of what the outcome is by pressing certain buttons. Outside is one she presses then goes to the door before the owner reacts. The buttons are in the same place , but there are so many this can't be by luck , she goes to the same 6 or so buttons which aren't located together. Now there are 24 hours a day and we get a few minutes , there may be hundreds of presses and wrong meanings. However there are too many the cat gets right for it to be confirmation bias , the owner only pushes the buttons to make a sentence, enforcing the training. The cat isn't forced , it often presses the same button a walks around waiting , and presses the same button wanting that response . Fan toy is the popular one , the cat will press it and sit and wait and then play with the owner as if this is what the cat wanted.. I've ever seen the cat reiterate what the owner has said ,, the cat asked for something , the owner said later , the cat asked again and the owner said later , the cat did a lap of the room and presses later. Too many times I've seen too many correct responses. Even if its two or three times a day and the rest are fails. The cat definitely knows and is aware of certain buttons. On top of that what's not funny about a cat waiting for the owner , wait a bit longer , then press MAD two three times 😂 You need to watch lots of them. Even if I've been drawn into believing, I was sceptical but now I think there is something there. But even if there isn't, the cat is cute , she is an older cat and it's just nice to see her interacting , there is no magic to prove to be wrong , its a cat pressing buttons and often getting correct responses, than in itself is clever, my cats still look at my hand when I point and tell them to get a toy , so billi has more intellect than my cats 😂

When Billi's owner refers to Billi's being "angry", she doesn't mean it in the extreme sense where the next thing the cat would do would be to scratch, bite, etc. She means Billi is "miffed", "annoyed". Notice that when Billi wants someone to pay attention to her button push, she wags her tail a lot. When she's miffed, she stops wagging.

With the angry cat thing, her hears were pushed back showing annoyance/ anger. A terrified cat is fur puffed up on back and neck/ If you dont know cat behaviorism dont speak on it ://

Ok I totally get the criticism about Bunny the dog that seems to just press buttons randomly and then the owner tries to make sentences with that but, I really don't have that feeling with Billi. Let me be clear, I am not saying that Billi has exactly the same concept behind the words as for us humans but I think that he kinda approaches some form of sense of language that lets him express what he wants.Also of course this is not a scientific experiment, just a overzealous owner with a lot of time that wants to littery have conversations with her a cat and therefore it would be a big stretch to say that this is evidence that we can learn cats how to talk. But I think Billi’s case would deserve a bit more attention and maybe an expert that would try actual tests to prove or disprove that Billi is understanding what he is doing. I don’t know, it feels to me that this video is super dismissive, like when the cat says he is mad and his ears are backwards with crazy eyes and you say that he doesn”t seem mad putting examples of super hungry cats to prove your point. So maybe that “mad” is a strong word in this case, but Billi seems kinda annoyed. So yeah “mad’ wouldn’t be the exact word but you're being fussy.

The ears back = angry cat

I think the cat was annoyed when it said *anger* because it’s ears went back.

Dogs has you as its pack leaders.....Cats have you as their SERVANTS.

I wonder if the cat had a "go away" button. And I cleaned that up massively, by the way. 😆

A couple years ago, I told my 6 year old cat Lily a very specific command as a joke. We were upstairs and I said to her, "Lily, I have to go to downstairs in my office. If you need me, jump over the baby gate and meow or paw at the door." I kinda laughed as I walked away. About 1 hour later she was at the door downstairs meowing!!! Not a joke, she had never done that before, but I knew she was the only cat that knew how to jump over the gate. I was astonished and picked her up, petted her, gave her treats and called my wife to tell her how smart Lily is. Having said that, I think there is something to the buttons thing, however teaching them the buttons takes training. Perhaps testing with basic ones like food, petting, outside, water, litter is enough at 1st.

I think you are wrong about Billi. She takes her time and she is able to ask for particular toys, food, and people. she can’t put together entire sentences because she’s a cat - no surprise there. But she does associate that some buttons make certain things she wants to appear.

I have a couple of buttons for my cat. Specifically, “litter” and “all done”. I have one cat who definitely understands what they mean. If I put on her harness when she doesn’t want it, she’ll go to the other room to press “all done”. If I turn on the tap for her to watch, she’ll hit “all done” when she’s finished). The “litter” button gets used as a replacement for her just sitting in front of the litter box and yelling at me when she wants it scooped, which I appreciate.

I have a few buttons for my dogs. But we don’t have abstract concept words. Every word has a teachable meaning. Ball, rope, tug, catch, outside…ect and each dogs name. Two of the three dogs do not care about the buttons at all. But the 9mo old puppy has taken to them quickly. She isn’t forming sentences or expressing complex thoughts, usually it’s a one button=one reward system, but she does sometimes string together more than one button at a time. For example, when one of the other dogs is playing too rough, she will push “no” and “all done”, which essentially are the same thing, then she will then push the other dogs name, which surprised me. The only abstract button we have is “love you” and the action associated with that button is “cuddle”. I think that’s the key, each button has an action associated with it. We have 12 buttons and she successfully uses 8 of them right now. I couldn’t think of any more words to add, i’m not sure how you would teach a dog complex concepts like time or emotions.

It happens, Billi also has an "Oops" button. There is another video called "Fantoy" where she wants to play with the Fantoy but gets frustrated not having a button for it at the time. She has one now.

I different situation, but explain Helen Keller, who was stricken with a disease as a toddler resulting in her being deaf and blind. How does one teach concepts to someone who can neither hear or see?

I agree some of the more complex behaviours are outside the realm of possibility but I do think she has successfully communicated her feelings before e.g theres a video where she pushes the "mad ouch noise" several times when the mom puts her music on. She does this again after she turns it back on too, so this wasnt a fluke. And her tail was swishing like crazy

wow. you watched 2 videos? Your investigation went deep.

Billi's owner is actually a veterinarian (she works with exotic animals at a FL park or zoo, saw one video of her explaining the process of replacing part of a toucan's cancerous bill) so I'd think she has some pretty solid scientific credentials as well. You might want to contact her directly and have a discussion, as I'm sure she is familiar with the various possibilities for bias.

You gave a reasoned argument and made some very good points. I realize in your head, this is no better than Clever Hans, the horse who “did math.” You were still wrong. You demonstrate your own confirmation bias. Let me explain the flaws in your interpretation: -SAMPLING ERROR I understand that this frustrates you, so you don’t want to watch hours of videos. Admittedly, picking the most popular was a decent strategy, but the shorter videos are usually more popular on any channel, and these videos tend to just be a cute conversation for popularity. If you watched more videos, or longer videos, you would see more convincing videos. For example, the video “Does Billi use all these words?” (which is nearly an hour long) shows Billi interrupting activity to communicate reactions, e.g. stopping play to communicate “ouch back” for being hit in the back with a toy, stopping a petting session when “Mom” pats her tummy to say “no tummy” (cat owners know sometimes they want a tummy pat, but sometimes it is just a display of trust and they will react negatively to their tummy being touched). You’ve missed spontaneous/reactive speech. Another good one displaying complexity is the video “do cats miss us when were gone?” where there is a conversation with a follow-up question: Billi asks “where Dad hmm?” (most people use the word “question” for her “hmm”) but he’s on a work trip, and the only words to communicate this is “outside”, which has other associated concepts associated with it; Billi follows up with “When?”, but the only time concepts Billi knows is “soon” (under 15 minutes) and “later” (over 15 minutes), which doesn’t properly explain that Dad will be gone a week. As to your assertion that, if it were language, there would be communication mistakes - there are! One of the buttons is “Oops!” There are examples of Billi accidentally setting off a button needlessly and communicating “oops” to erase, or Billi restarting the phrase after an error. Due to your own bias, you are not taking in a large enough sample to be representative and justify conclusions. -IMPROPER CODING / misidentification I respect that you are an animal behaviourist and there is transferable knowledge, but stick to marine animals. First, your examples of anger are not anger but acute stress response (fear, threat response). The ears pointed backwards in the video where they label it *anger* is more accurate: it is a response to emotions on the frustration-anger spectrum. Second, you need to put it in the context of the available vocabulary. Billi only has 3 emotional words available, one of which is technically a feeling, not an emotion. Billi is technically only trained to express positive emotions (“happy”) and negative emotions (“mad”), but you’re not going to use the words “positive” and “negative” to train a language beginner. Mad is the common negative, and short, though some would teach the word “upset.” While the attribution was anthropomorphism (there’s no evidence cats feel guilt or embarrassment), it is quite possible Billi felt negatively at that moment. The 3rd “emotion” is “love you!”; while the behaviour is commonly referred to as love, to be technical, Billi is trained to use the “love” button to express attachment and trust - a commonly expressed feeling in cats, which are colonial animals. Third, if you watch back in history, you would see how slowly Billi’s vocabulary was built, from concrete actions/objects to (slightly) more complex concepts of location, time, affirmative versus negative responses, etc. Billi’s training involves operant conditioning, and follows a similar path to infant-to-toddler language acquisition. Surely, you are aware of this path being used to help marine animals communicate with us. Fourth, there are videos of Billi, as well as other animals, selecting a word with the owner not in the room, trying to draw the owner into the room for communication. As well, there are examples of responses that could go multiple ways. Billi also doesn’t always look up when composing phrases. These things eliminate is some cases, and at least reduce in others, observer expectancy effect. - METHODOLOGICAL ERRORS The pictures and words on the buttons are for the humans. Billi and other animals demonstrate understanding the oral word, and are usually trained to locate the pre-recorded word by position (some are taught with colour, but that is limiting without their understanding of shades). The location of buttons is recorded so it can be replicated when necessary, such as cleaning the carpet or when they moved residences to the one you saw (there’s a video where Billi keeps asking for a toy that was delayed in the move). Incidentally, they had to replace their system to the one you saw. If you had watched the history, you would have known that the original system used bigger buttons (the size of the “Billi” button you commented on) lined along the wall. The newer system allows more words and expansion. That large “Billi” button was a result of the owner liking the custom sticker someone had given her and not wanting to replace that button. As a behaviourist, surely you have studied behavioural research methodology which, in earlier learning, is usually taught by discussing the flawed methodologies of the past. Methodology improves with time, particularly our understanding of confounding factors. I mean, only in the past few years have we completely re-interpreted the Marshmallow test from the original assertion of delayed gratification to newer understanding of trust, this being the likely explanation for correlations to socioeconomic factors. You must have read the study of the Marine Biological Laboratory adapting the test to cuttlefish; I don’t read the Proceedings of the Royal Society (I rely on science reporting outside my field of human behaviour) but I would imagine it discussed the human experiments in the introduction to outline the premise, much like human behaviour studies reference preceding animal studies. Generally originals are always explained in the intro of adaptation studies in all science fields. Throughout the animal world, we have demonstrated that the old standard for animal intelligence testing was completely flawed - the response to human commands. We are discovering that it is likely more animals have sentience than we give them credit for - including marine life such as dolphins and whales. Cats are one of the animals which have been demonstrated to understand a human command, but chose not to follow it. Given our collective realisation of the intelligence of animals, is it really so far-fetched that an animal that can learn its own name and basic words like “food” and “outside” might be capable of further vocabulary?

My dog can definitely understand a few words. He knows "treat, bone, walk, car-ride, etc." However, I don't believe that he is comprehending "language" in the same sense that a human does, but that each of these sounds are often followed by a particular activity that he enjoys. If my dog wants to go outside he tells me by sitting by the back door. If he wants food he tells me by looking at his food dish, and then at back at me. That is how he has evolved to communicate. Dogs and humans have evolved together for 30,000 years. We have learned to communicate with each other and understand each other's methods of communication, but we are still both bound by the capabilities of our respective minds/bodies.

I'm a recent fan of BilliSpeaks in the sense that I discovered their channel about 2 weeks ago and I view their content as entertainment. I also genuinely think Billi and her owners have a great relationship. I suspect that's why this video of yours popped up on my feed. Personally I'm not a scientist so I'm not going to argue with that. If peer-reviewed and thoroughly vetted modern scientific research conclusively or near-conclusively determines a given thing, we can't really expect random youtuber #9,001 to just make an off-the-cuff armchair comment and suddenly debunk all of that. What I do think however is that you seem to have an agenda beyond merely disproving the "cats and dogs can speak with buttons" theory. It seems to me your beef is actually with fluentpet and other related companies that, in your words, "profit by taking advantage of people." This is a noble endeavor, that I agree with on principle. But shouldn't your time and effort be focused more towards fighting the cause instead of treating the symptom? Billispeaks and others might be contributing (albeit possibly unintentionally) towards the problem but they are NOT the problem. The problem is fluentpets, not the alleged fools they rope in. Less reacting to Billispeaks, more calling out Leo Trottier. Again, assuming your goal is altruistic.

Im new to this channel. I work in research and academia so I thought this would be an interesting video. You say you are a biologist but what does that mean? Do you have a phd? Are you actively conducting research and publishing papers? What are your credentials? I honestly am curious.

Are you as a "scientist " who's goal is to DISPROVE billi not suffering from confirmation bias as well? in your judgement of a couple minute of video watching...?

Yes, the human pushes the buttons to confirm the buttons that Bili pushes, that she heard them. Your view of cat anger is a type of arousal usually involving fear and startlement, not anger as such. And by the way, your assumption that there’s no association is also a huge and unwarranted assumption: with the cat, the buttons have in fact been modelled over and over and over.

This video would have been watchable if not for the scathing, condescending, arrogant tone. Science should never look down on anyone, no matter how foolish you find them.

Um, angry cats put their ears back. Billi's ears were back in that moment. Backs puff up and arch backs when defensive. Trying to scare off an enemy without a fight.

The studies I've seen on the FoxP2 are inconclusive on the inability of an animal to understand formulated sentences, they mostly point out that most animals cannot make oral sounds similar to humans, also the issues and disorders caused by mutations or alterations of the gene, and how certain amino acid makeups in FoxP2 were essential to human language formation in humans. None of the studies I've seen disprove sentence formulation or comprehension via mimicry or non-oral routes in animals, especially since the studies make sure to clarify that FoxP2 and its role is currently not wholly understood. Songbirds, primates, and mice seem to be the most studied as well, I couldn't find much on cats and dogs which would be the most relevant. I agree that the study with the buttons is a conflict of interest and heavily biased, but I don't think there are enough academic studies to disprove animal sentence formation yet. And to be frank, funding for these kinds of studies is pretty limited and criticism is aimed at invalidating completely rather than seeing if there are other methods to produce clearer results. I do think scientists and non-scientists tend to anthropomorphize but the Pepperberg's gray parrot studies were interesting and had good potential progress on this topic. I'd be happy to read any papers that you think would provide valid arguments to my points though.

Um… It really seems like you’re going at this whole anti-button-pushing arc with at best, some bias, or at worst, unjustified cynicism. It’s almost like you feel kind of threatened by the possibility that communication is actually happening here? I’m curious as to why you think it’s exceptional for you to analyze if communication is actually happening, based on watching *just* one or two videos… If you were to actually sit down and watch several videos, you would see how foolish you’re being for making such hasty criticisms. When you read books on biology and animal behavior, do you feel that you have a thorough grasp on the concepts of the book by reading one page or one chapter? Sure, this whole button-pushing thing done with animals is atypical and seems even unnatural, but again, if you actually watched more videos or better yet, watched Billie’s mom speak in some of the interviews she’s done on RU-vid, you’d find that a) sometimes pets just don’t take to trying to employ the button communication and b) she and Billie’s lives have actually become more enriched through adding this dimension to their communication, and it doesn’t take away from nonverbal communication. Idk I’m unimpressed, especially considering you *are* supposed to be educated on animal behavior and communication. You tried to poke all of these holes in Billie and her mom’s process without taking a moment to consider the flaws in your own process. It’s just lazy and close-minded. 🤷‍♀️

Billie´s Ears at 5:01 defenitive means alert, anger i´m a princess don´t forget the fun

If you only watched one and how can you come to this conclusion? This is a cat. 😂 um what?

It seems to me that she just doesn’t want the cats to be able to process complex thought and communicate using buttons because that would put her out of a job eventually, if all animals were able to use these persons to communicate. She uses the same breakdown for her job which is body language analysis, but Throws out the evidence out the window when the cat deliberately searches out buttons for the broken sentence and the owner has to figure out what the cat is meaning with the broken English but yet using body language to figure out what an animal is saying is the same as what the cat owner is doing, I think in a few years this might put her job on a thin line to where she might be replaced by buttons

Great video! I agree with you mostly but… What about Russell, another button cat, who is bothered by laundry left in the dryer. He will push the “laundry” button and sure enough, there’s laundry in the dryer. Or he’ll push Help and Closet and they check and yes, there’s a puffy toy in the closet. It’s implied by the owner that Russell doesn’t push these buttons unless there’s a problem. One time he pushed outside over and over again and they realized one of their other cats had gotten caught out on the patio. To me it seems like Russell is communicating issues that he knows the humans can fix and once they’re fixed, he doesn’t push those buttons. That seems like real communication, doesn’t it?

I like the buttons because it gets people really invested in having time with their pets(learners :)), I communicate with my cat, he meows until I follow him.

thats an annoyed cat lol