Scientists believe they’ve confirmed what many have long believed: Dogs can understand your words.
Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary made the determination after studying dogs as they were shown balls, slippers, leashes and other items that they are often associated with, Knewz.com has learned.
Though it doesn’t mean dogs can understand every word you say, it suggests they are able to know words beyond common commands such as “sit” and “fetch,” verbs.
In particular, the study determined that canines can understand nouns.
“I think the capacity is there in all dogs,” said Marianna Boros, who helped arrange the experiments, according to The Guardian. “This changes our understanding of language evolution and our sense of what is uniquely human.”
The findings help to affirm what a 2022 study found, which is that dog owners believe their pets can understand somewhere between 15 and 215 words.
Another study by researchers in South Carolina in 2011 showed that a collie named Chase was able to learn the name of more than 1,000 objects, including 800 cloth toys, 116 balls and 26 Frisbees over a three-year period.
However, the study by Boros and her colleagues was the first to look into what’s going on inside the canine brain when it comes to understanding words.
For the study, the researchers invited 18 dog owners to bring their pets to a laboratory with five objects they knew well.
At the lab, the owners were told to say the word of one of the objects before showing the dog either the correct or incorrect one. For example, they would say, “Look, here’s the ball” while holding up a Frisbee instead.
The practice was done multiple times.
During the experiments, researchers examined the dogs’ brain activity through non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG). The results showed that the patterns of brain activity were different when the objects matched and when they didn’t.
The results were similar to what has been seen when humans were put under similar testing.
The researchers concluded that the tests “provide the first neural evidence for object word knowledge in a non-human animal.”
Boros noted that the results did not mean that dogs understood words as well as humans. She said in some cases it seems dogs have selective recognition of words.
“My dog only cares about his ball,” said Boros. “If I bring him another toy, he doesn’t care about it at all.”
Dr. Holly Root-Gutteridge, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lincoln who was not involved in the research told The Guardian that the results were “fascinating.”
“It’s particularly interesting because I think it’s unlikely this started during domestication, so it may be widespread throughout mammals,” she said. “That’s highly exciting in itself as it shines new light on language evolution.
“It might be that the dogs don’t really care enough about the game of ‘fetch this particular thing’ to play along with the way we’ve been training and testing them so far. Your dog may understand what you’re saying but choose not to act.”
The study was published in Current Biology on Friday, March 22.
The post Canine Comprehension: Dogs Understand Nouns, Especially Their Own Toys, in Scientific Study appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: David Wetzel
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