Whether dogs truly understand the words we say — as opposed to things such as tone and context clues — is a question that has long perplexed owners, and so far science has not been able to deliver clear answers. A new brain wave study published on Friday in Current Biology suggests that hearing the names of their favorite toys actually activates dogs’ memories of those objects.
“It definitely shows us that it’s not human-unique to have this type of referential understanding,” said first author Lilla Magyari, a researcher at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, adding that scientists have been skeptical up to this point.
With a couple of famous exceptions, dogs have fared poorly on lab tests requiring them to fetch objects after hearing their names, and many experts have said it is not so much what we say, but how and when we say things that pique our pooches’ interest.
Photo: AFP
For example, yelling: “Go get the stick,” and having a dog successfully bring the object back does not conclusively prove they know what the word “stick” means.
Even scientists who concede that dogs pay attention to our speech have said that, rather than really understanding what words stand for, they are reacting to particular sounds with a learned behavior.
In the new paper, Magyari and colleagues applied a noninvasive brain imaging technique to 18 dogs at their lab in Budapest. The test involved taping electrodes to the dogs’ heads to monitor their brain activity.
Their owners said words for toys they were most familiar with — for example, “Kun-kun, look, the ball” — and then showed them either the matching object or a mismatched object. After analyzing the electroencephalography recordings, the team found different brain patterns when dogs were shown matching versus mismatched objects.
This experimental setup has been used for decades in humans, including babies, and is accepted as evidence of “semantic processing,” or understanding of meaning.
The test also had the benefit of not requiring the dogs to fetch something to prove their knowledge.
“We found the effect in 14 dogs,” co-first author Marianna Boros said, proving the ability is not confined to “a few exceptional dogs.”
Even the four that “failed” might have simply been tested on the wrong words, she added.
Holly Root-Gutteridge, a dog behavior scientist at the University of Lincoln in England, said that the ability to fetch specific toys by name had previously been deemed a “genius” quality.
Famous border collies Chaser and Rico could find and retrieve specific toys from large piles, but were deemed outliers, she said.
The new study “shows that a whole range of dogs are learning the names of the objects in terms of brain response even if they don’t demonstrate it behaviorally,” Root-Gutteridge said, adding that it was “another knock for humanity’s special and distinct qualities.”
The paper “provides further evidence that dogs might understand human vocalizations much better than we usually give them credit for,” added Federico Rossano, a cognitive scientist at University of California, San Diego.
Not all experts were equally enthusiastic.
Clive Wynne, a canine behaviorist at Arizona State University, said that he was “split” on the findings.
“I think the paper falls down when it wants to make the big picture claim that they have demonstrated what they call ‘semantic understanding,’” he said, although he praised the “ingenious” experimental setup as a new way to test the full extent of dogs’ “functional vocabulary.”
Wynne said that he needs to spell out the word “walk” when he is in front of his dog — lest his pet get excited for an outing there and then — but he does not need to take the same precautions in front of his wife, whose understanding of the word goes beyond simple association.
“Would [Ivan] Pavlov be surprised by these results?” said Wynne, referencing the famous Russian scientist who showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate when they heard a bell signaling meal time. “I do not think he would be.”
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS