People who have enjoyed the company of a dog may already have their own experience that confirms the results of this new study on communication, but for the majority of the population -including the scientists who are the authors of the research-, it is a curious and relatively important novelty.
The authors of this work, whose results are published this week in the journal Communications Biology, start from the premise that “when addressing domestic dogs, humans tend to use speech styles characterized by a high and variable tone and brief expressions, similar to those used to address babies”, that is, they use a particular exaggerated prosody to facilitate understanding by dogs.
The author team of the new study, whose first signatories are Anna Gergely, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology in Budapest (Hungary), and Anna Gábor, from the Eötvös Loránd University Department of Ethology (Hungary), used functional magnetic resonance imaging equipment. (fMRI) to test the effects on the brain of dogs of the various ways humans talk to them.
The first conclusion is that, indeed, the exaggerated prosody used by some people when addressing dogs causes greater brain reactions in these companion animals, compared to phrases that address dogs with the same tone used in conversations with other humans.
More specifically, the scientific team responsible for the research has discovered that this type of speech for dogs (with emphasis on some words, short sentences and slow diction) is more effective when used by women.
The authors of the new study recall that baby-directed speech is very important, as it helps children’s healthy cognitive, social, and language development. In this sense, it is considered that the brains of babies are tuned to this style of speech.
In the case of dogs, the issue had not been proven until now, so an experiment was carried out with trained dogs and recorded voices of 12 women and 12 men in real-life interactions.
“Studying how dog brains process speech directed at them is exciting, because it may help us understand how exaggerated prosody contributes to efficient speech processing in a non-human species to which we attribute the ability to comprehend, for example, commands. verbal,” explains Anna Gergely, in a note released by her university.
The results of the study show that the auditory brain regions of dogs responded more to speech directed at dogs and babies than to speech directed at other humans. In this way, the authors consider that it is “the first neural evidence that the brains of dogs are tuned to speech directed specifically at them.”
The fact sheet published by Eötvös Loránd University indicates that, “Interestingly, the sensitivity of the dog’s brain to human speech directed at them (and at babies) was more pronounced when the speakers were female and was affected by the tone of speech.” the voice and its variation”.
These results suggest that the way we speak to our dogs does matter and that their brains are specifically sensitive to the exaggerated prosody typical of the female voice.
“What makes this result particularly interesting is that in dogs, unlike babies, this sensitivity cannot be explained either by ancient responsiveness to conspecific cues or by intrauterine exposure to women’s voices.” indicate the authors.
As a possible explanation, the authors indicate that it may be an adaptation acquired in the domestication process of dogs. On the other hand, they indicate, “the greater sensitivity of the brain of dogs to speech pronounced specifically by women may be due to the fact that women speak to dogs more often than men with exaggerated prosody”, explains Anna Gábor.
