They also found that similarly to humans, dogs use the left side of their brain to process meaning and the right side to process emotion or intonation.
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ENIKÖ KUBINYILike humans, dogs use the left sides of their brains to processes words and the right side to process intonation.
While other species probably also have the mental ability to understand language like dogs do, their lack of interest in human speech makes it hard to test, added Andics.
“This shows … that dogs not only separate what we say from how we say it, but also that they can combine the two for a correct interpretation of what those words really meant”, Andics said. It turns out that dogs are not as naïve as we thought, and if you say non-meaningful words to them in a positive tone – they won’t be so convinced that you chose to compliment them.
Wearing headphones, the dogs listened as trainers combined phrases with different intonations. In other words, the dogs combined meaning and intonation when processing their trainer’s speech. You can have full conversations with them and you know they understand you, or let’s say you had a bad day at work.
It was only when both the word and the tone were positive that the dogs showed increased activity in the reward centers of the brain, which normally respond to happy stimuli like being pet and getting a treat.
So while dogs probably won’t be listening attentively to full sentences anytime soon, the new research shows that words and tone matter, and that when they match, the dogs notice.
As an experiment, researchers trained puppies to sit still for seven minutes in a fMRI scanner to measure activity in their brain.
Andics says one of the biggest factors in the study was that the dogs could not see their owners, so the only information was the speech signal. Revealingly, the reward centre only became active when dogs heard praise words in praising intonation, that is, praises delivered with higher and more varying pitch.
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The study suggests that man’s best friend may read human body language, tone, and other physical factors in order to interpret specific words used by humans. It is the first ever to look at how the brains of dogs process speech, according to Time. Next they switched to garbled and meaningless words in the same kind of neutral or praising tone.
