Does your dog really, truly understand you?
Dogs Understand Human Words and Intonations!
It is both what you say and the way that you say it that matters when it comes to communicating with man’s best friend, research has revealed.
In a recent research study done at the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest in Hungary, scientists scanned the brains of dogs while each was played the sound of their trainer’s voice, and discovered that our canine companions only experience a sense of reward when both the words and intonation indicate praise.
Attila Andics, the lead researcher states that the results were “very exciting and very surprising.”
Andics and colleagues describe how they trained 13 dogs over a period of months to lie motionless inside an fMRI machine, in order to probe how they process human speech. Four different recordings were played with either praise words (such as “well done!”) or neutral words (such as “however” or “nevertheless”) coupled with either a high-pitched intonation indicative of praise, or a neutral intonation.
“From this research, we can quite confidently say if they only hear you then it is not only how you say things but also what you say that matters to them,” said Andics.
To read more about this research please visit: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/30/dogs-understand-both-words-and-intonation-of-human-speech