How dogs understand words like humans do

A dog really does understand its master’s voice, new research has shown.

Words and the way they are spoken are processed on different sides of the canine brain – just as they are in humans.

Although it would be barking up the wrong tree to assume they have a human-like grasp of language, dogs appear to pay attention to words and sentences just like we do.

The study tested dogs’ “hemispheric bias” – favouring the left or right side of the brain – as they listened to a “come on” command from their owners.

Due to cross-wiring in the brain, if a dog turns its left ear towards the voice it means that the right side of the brain is processing the sound.

Conversely, turning the right ear forward means that sound is being processed in the left hemisphere.

Sounds containing exaggerated intonation or emotional cues prompted the first reaction and those highlighting meaningful word components the second.

"This is particularly interesting because our results suggest that 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," said Dr David Reby, a researcher at the University of Sussex. The findings are reported in the journal Current Biology.

“The striking correspondence between dogs’ and humans’ hemispheric biases

reported here may reflect convergent evolution if dogs have been selected to respond to human vocal signals during domestication,” the scientists wrote in their paper.

“Alternatively, they may be indicative of shared hemispheric specialisations that are present across distant mammal species and expressed when exposed to functionally meaningful speech signals.”

* Press Association