London - Dogs have been man’s best friend for thousands of years, our loyal companions since the Stone Age.
Now scientists suspect they have found the root of the relationship – a dog really does understand his master’s voice.
Pet dogs process language in a similar way to humans, they say.
Not only do they learn to spot the groups of consonants and vowels that make up spoken commands, they also notice emotional tone, intonation and volume changes that can influence meaning.
Scientists at Sussex University tested the way that dogs’ brains process language. Humans have a “hemispheric bias” in communication, with different aspects of language processed in either the left or right side of the brain. The tests suggest dogs have a similar split between left and right.
A group of 25 dogs was placed between two speakers playing commands such as “come on then”. Due to cross-wiring in the brain, if a dog turned its left ear towards the voice it meant the right side of its brain was processing the sound. Turning the right ear forward meant sound was being processed in the left side of the brain. When a command was delivered in a flat, emotionless tone, the dogs turned right, suggesting they were using the left brain hemisphere.
When commands exaggerated intonation or emotion, they turned left, using the right hemisphere.
The results suggest that like us, dogs process different aspects of human speech in different parts of the brain, perhaps indicating why they can be trained. Dr David Reby, of the University of Sussex, said: “Our results suggest the processing of speech components in the dog’s brain is divided between the two hemispheres in a way that is actually very similar to the way it is separated in the human brain.”
In the journal Current Biology, the scientists suggested that the “striking” similarity might be the result of “convergent evolution” – meaning that in the process of domesticating dogs, humans favoured the individuals that responded best to human voices. - Daily Mail