Johnson: Dogs occupy unique place in family

The more kids there are, the worse it can get — and like a teacher doing roll call, many a parent or grandparent has had to list off the name of each child in the family until they click on the name of the one they are trying to beckon from the other room, or worse yet, the one standing right in front of them.

In search of ponies

Quite a lot of people can think of at least one family member who always mixed up the names of the kids. Similarly, a fair share of folks have, throughout the course of their lives, been regularly called a sibling or cousin’s name by someone who should know who they are.

It’s not intended as a slight by any means, and as much as it may make for great senility jokes, mixing up names is not, in and of itself, a sign of old age or deteriorating faculties.

To the contrary, it is actually quite common to mix up the names of kids, siblings or friends and most everyone does it at one time or another regardless of age.

Not only is it not a symptom of memory loss, it turns out it is more about those being named than the person doing the naming, according to a study published recently.

Conducted by psychology and neuroscience researchers from Duke University, the purpose of the study was to examine the dynamics at play when people call familiar people by the wrong name.

The research uncovered some consistencies in what it is that causes individuals to mix up names by identifying the relationships between those doing the naming and those misnamed. Ironically, what they found was it’s those closest that are likely to use the wrong name.

In a series of five studies involving 1,700 participants, the researchers found that more than 50 percent of them had been called by someone else’s name and 95 percent of the time, they reported it was a family member who called them by the wrong name.

While phonetic similarities between names was a factor, the researchers found that more than anything, it is the category someone fits into that seems to be at the root of name mix-ups, for example confusing the names of family members or mixing up friends' names.

Looking alike, however, has little influence on mixing up names, and, they discovered that in fact being human isn’t even necessary.

Case in point, the study’s participants reported that while they share only somewhat similar appearances with those whose names they had been called, a significant number of them have had their name mixed up with a pet’s name.

Even more curious, of the different pets respondents owned — as many of them had cats as had dogs — most often they reported mistakenly being called the dog’s name by a family member.

It’s possible dogs tend to be called by and respond to their names more often than other animals, but researchers surmise that while cats and other animals are loved pets, the reality is dogs occupy a unique place within the family structure.

The tendency to confuse their names with those of human family members, they concluded, shows that among pets, dogs have a more human-like role in their owner’s minds and are therefore more likely to be lumped in with the kids when names are shouted out.

While knowing why it happens may do little to soothe the pride of a family member mistakenly referred to by the dog’s name, it appears, for dogs anyway, being the subject of family name confusion might just be the highest of compliments.

Sharna Johnson is a writer who is always searching for ponies. You can reach her at:

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