Dogs Unraveling Language Brains Speak Words

Researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting that dogs possess the ability to comprehend certain words, as observed through studies monitoring their brain activity during interactions with familiar objects like balls, slippers, and leashes.

This discovery implies that dogs can grasp nouns beyond basic commands such as ‘sit’ and ‘fetch,’ although there remains limited understanding of how dogs process language in their brains. Marianna Boros from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary remarked, “I believe this capacity exists in all dogs. This challenges our understanding of language evolution and what is considered uniquely human.”

Fascination with a survey revealing that dog owners perceive their pets to respond to a considerable vocabulary has intrigued scientists. In 2011, a border collie named Chaser astounded researchers by learning the names of over 1,000 objects.

To delve into this phenomenon, Boros and her team conducted experiments where dog owners brought their pets to the lab along with familiar objects like balls, slippers, and rubber toys. Owners were instructed to verbalize words for these objects before presenting either the matching or different items to their dogs.

EEG monitoring of the dogs’ brain activity unveiled distinct patterns corresponding to whether the objects aligned with the words uttered by their owners or not. Published in Current Biology, the study provides the first neural evidence of object word comprehension in non-human animals.

Nevertheless, Boros emphasized the necessity for further research to ascertain dogs’ capacity to generalize word meanings. Dr. Holly Root-Gutteridge from the University of Lincoln, not involved in the study, proposed that the understanding of nouns by dogs might be prevalent among mammals.

The research also prompts inquiries into why some dogs may not exhibit their comprehension of specific nouns, speculating that dogs might grasp the meaning of a word but choose not to act upon it.