Dogs have a much better understanding of human speech than previously thought – Technology News, Firstpost



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Looks like the 2016 animated film by Chris Renaud and Yarrow Cheney The secret life of pets was imagined because the directors were more certain than you that dogs can understand human language much better than we thought.

If you live with a dog, it is likely that you had already suspected him of understanding your words. A recent study published by Frontiers in Neuroscience We have tried to scientifically analyze this by using brain imaging to determine how our beloved doggos treat exactly the words we teach them and the words that they associate with objects. This study is the first of its kind and was conducted by scientists from Emory University in Atlanta.

The results revealed that dogs, at a very basic level, understand the meaning of the words they learned by separating them from those they had never heard before. They have a neural representation, or a visual system, to differentiate these words from the rest.

Image of representation

Image of representation

To determine this distinction between words, scientists trained 12 dogs to search for two objects from their names.

The dogs belonged to different races and their owners had taught them for months to recover the two objects based on particular names. For each dog, the first article had to be covered with a soft material and the second with a textured material.

During this period, the dogs were given instructions to pick up one of the objects and they were rewarded. The training was over when a dog showed that he could discriminate between the two objects by fetching whatever the owner was asking for, even in the presence of both objects.

After the training period, as part of an experiment, the trained dog sat in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, an fMRI device, and the owner then stood in front of him.

The owner then pronounced the names of two separate objects or toys at regular intervals, while showing the corresponding toys. With the aid of fMRI, it was noted that there was greater activation in the auditory regions of the brain when "new words" or words unrelated to the words formed were pronounced. . It was unexpected.

Image of representation

Image of representation

It is the opposite of human nature. "We expected dogs to make a neuronal distinction between the words they know and the words they do not know." What is amazing is that the result is opposed to that of human research. "says Ashley Prichard, a Ph.D. candidate at Emory's Department of Psychology and also the first author of the study.

They concluded that dogs show greater neuronal activation to a new word (a new word) because they think that their owners want them to understand what they say, and "maybe to be also receive praise or food. "

However, the study notes that the conclusion may not mean that human speech is the best way for an owner to communicate with a dog.

So now, if someone tells you that what you say to your dog does not matter, as long as you say it nicely, and that bothers you, it's time you get them say to give more credit to your dog.

In fact, just realizing that our precious doggos make an extra effort to understand what we are saying is just melting our hearts.

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