Dogs (Canis familiaris) pay more attention to what humans say than was previously thought, new research published in the journal ‘Animal Cognition’ reveals.
Even when what we say isn’t specifically directed at them, dogs do not turn a deaf ear and are truly attentive, actively seeking information and commands that they deem relevant.
Humans and dogs share an ancestral relationship, established more than 14,000 years ago, with some authors even speaking of a co-evolution in which the two species have influenced each other’s evolution. Despite this, and while it is acknowledged that dogs are extraordinarily perceptive, little is known about what they actually understand of human speech.
Therefore, a group of researchers from the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex (United Kingdom) gathered a group of dogs from various breeds to determine whether “man’s best friend” is effectively capable of discerning relevant information from speech delivered in a monotone tone.
“Surprisingly, the dogs responded consistently to the commands, demonstrating their ability to extract relevant verbal content from what was being said,” they explain in a press release.
Normally, when we want to capture the attention of our canine companions, we tend to adopt a tone often known as “baby talk,” as many people who live with dogs are well aware. But the results of this investigation show that, even when we are not directly speaking to them, dogs are listening and respond when the information seems important to them.
“For the scientists who developed it, this work confirms that dogs possess a neurological structure that allows them to recognise elements in human speech, such as their name, even when it is spoken without emphatic intonation.”
“We discovered that dogs can, without a doubt, detect their name when presented in a monotonous fashion and buried within an irrelevant discourse stream,” emphasizes Holly Root-Gutteridge, the study’s first author, which is “a prerequisite for understanding language” and shows that dogs are better listeners than we may think.
“That means they are always listening to us, but they will pay more attention, of course, if we use their names and utter it in a cheerful tone,” explains the researcher.
“The fact that basic verbal information can be perceived by a species that does not speak, or that human speech taps perceptual abilities present in other mammals, or that dogs have a special capacity for hearing human speech as a result of domestication,” suggests David Reby, co-author of the article.
