You don’t have to talk to your dog like a baby: Science says they still get you

Humans and dogs have been co-existing for over 14,000 years, but there is still much we don’t know about our furry friends. Their intelligence is often on display, but just how smart they are continues to surprise us with the results of each new study that examines the matter.

While we know that dogs respond to their names and commands, both verbal and through gestures, as well as understanding a fairly wide range of words, how they actually comprehend human language is still a bit of a mystery. A new study has revealed that dogs are actually ‘listening in’ far more actively than previously thought.

We will often address dogs using what is known as dog-directed speech, similar to ‘baby talk’, using an exaggerated intonation to provide vocal cues that we are talking to them specifically. But A collaborative study initiated at the University of Sussex, with researchers from the Universities of Saint Etienne and Lincoln found that dogs can also “spontaneously recognizing meaningful phonemic content within an unexaggerated stream of speech.”

Dogs are “all ears” when people are speaking

In order to test dogs ability to recognize meaningful content within what was being said, the researchers had each dog’s human owner read “a meaningless text which included a short meaningful or meaningless phrase,” which they did either using monotone speech or dog-directed speech.

They found that the test subjects, a mixed group of dogs from a variety of breeds, “could absolutely find their name when presented in a monotone way and buried in stream of irrelevant speech,” said Dr Holly Root-Gutteridge, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Lincoln in a press release. This showed that “they’re listening to us all the time.”

While the canines gave roughly the same amount of attention to familiar and meaningless words when spoken in monotone or dog-directed speech, the latter tone drew their attention more if paired with their name.

“They will pay more attention if you give them both cues,” explained Dr Root-Gutteridge. “So, ‘Sheba, come on then’ gets more attention from her if you sound eager to see her.”

Doubts still remain: Is it the human voice or dogs have a special ear?

This research, showing that dogs brains can passively sift through what humans are saying finding what is relevant to them in particular, it is hoped can help when training service dogs. Additionally, it will have implications in the wider field of human-animal interactions.

But there are still doubts that need to be answered. “The fact that basic verbal information can be perceived by a species that does not speak either indicates that human speech exploits perceptual abilities present in other mammals, or that dogs have a special ear for human speech as a consequence of domestication,” explained the project leader, Professor David Reby at the University of Saint Etienne.

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