My buddy, Rufus
Posted on 12/11/2020 6:22:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Most of us who have been blessed with having a dog for a friend know how beautiful they are, how loyal they are, and how smart they are. Get any dog lover started on how intelligent his friend is and he won’t shut up.
But what kind of intelligence is at work in a dog’s brain? Most of us have probably shared the fantasy of sitting down with our dog and having a long chat, but the reality is a lot different. In many ways, a dog’s brain is similar to ours but with some vital differences.
We know, for instance, that dogs can understand subtle differences in human speech sounds. But a study done by researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest seems to indicate that dogs are unable to tell the difference between words that sound alike but have different meanings.
To probe these limitations in dogs’ auditory vocabulary (if you will), the researchers conducted an experiment, in which over 40 dogs were brought into the lab, having their brain activity measured non-invasively via electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes attached to their scalp.
While connected to the equipment, the animals heard three different types of words spoken on a recording: familiar instruction words (eg. ‘sit’), phonetically similar nonsense words (eg. ‘sut’), and dissimilar nonsense words (eg. ‘bep’).
The results are about what you’d expect.
The EEG results, based on a subset of 17 animals whose data were considered reliable, showed a clear difference in the dogs’ brain responses – called event-related potentials (ERPs) – when they heard either familiar words or the dissimilar-sounding nonsense words.
On the whole, though, the ERPs suggested dogs weren’t able to distinguish between the familiar instructions (such as ‘sit’) and similar-sounding nonsensical terms (such as ‘sut’), given the phonetic overlap between them.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
It’s clear that “Don’t pee on the floor” is far too complex an instruction for them to follow. :)
Some dogs heard “laurel”, others heard “yani”, but they all heard “cookie”.
They definitely understand “walk” and “treat”
I’d ask my hound, but he’s been missing since yesterday.
My dog doesn’t understand the words “come here” but clearly understands the words “are you hungry.”
:(
My dog knows “do you want to get your sweater on”, “do you want to get a bath”, “go to Pop” “do you want to go out” and “go get in your bed”.
Let’s turn it around. Can humans really know what dogs are saying to us when they use certain sounds to communicate? No one else may know what my dog is saying because they don’t speak the same language as he and I do.
We had a Newfie, and I’m still not convinced he knew his name. Sweet dog, dumb as a post.
I'm not sure if that's more a sad statement about the people I've known, or a statement on how little "science" actually knows about dogs.
The words "are you hungry" are also linked to the sound of any food wrapper being undone. Open a bag of chips and watch what happens. :-)
“Who’s a good boy?”
So I think we have solved the problem. I will just carry a bag of chips with me when we go on our walk. Thanks for the tip!
I’ve read that dogs read your facial expression, voice tone and inflection as much or more in understanding you as they do the actual words you use.
Also, they can smell different emotional states.
Its all about are they likely to get something to eat after the human goes through his or her visual and sound gyrations.
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