Madrid. Dogs show greater brain sensitivity to speech directed at them than speech directed at adults, especially when spoken by women, according to a new study in Communications Biology.
By conducting an fMRI study on trained dogs, Hungarian researchers from Eötvös Loránd University revealed interesting similarities between the brains of babies and dogs during the processing of speech with exaggerated prosody.
When we communicate with recipients who have limited language proficiency (such as babies and dogs), we use a specific speaking style characterized by exaggerated prosody to capture and hold their attention. Infant-directed speech is very important as it supports healthy cognitive, social and language development of children. So it’s no surprise that babies’ brains are attuned to this style of speaking, but are dog’s brains also sensitive to the way we talk to them?
To answer this question, the researchers measured the animal’s brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In the MRI, trained, conscious pets listened to dog-, baby-, and adult-directed speech recorded by 12 women and 12 men in real-life interactions.
“Studying how dog brains process dog-directed speech is exciting, because it may help us understand how exaggerated prosody contributes to efficient speech processing in a non-human species adept at relying on different speech cues (for example, following verbal commands),” explains Anna Gergely, co-first author of the study.
The study shows that auditory regions of the canine brain responded more to speech directed at dogs and babies than to speech directed at adults, which is the first neural evidence that their brains are tuned to speech directed specifically at them.
Interestingly, the pet brain’s speech sensitivity directed at dogs and babies was more pronounced when the speakers were female and was affected by voice pitch and variation. These results suggest that the way we speak to our dogs does matter and that their brains are specifically sensitive to the exaggerated prosody typical of the female voice.
“What makes this result particularly interesting is that in dogs, unlike babies, this sensitivity cannot be explained by either ancient responsiveness to specific cues or intrauterine exposure to women’s voices. Surprisingly, the tone-of-voice patterns that characterize female-directed speech to dogs are not normally used in dog-to-dog communication; therefore, our results may serve as evidence for a neural preference that dogs developed during their domestication.
“The greater sensitivity of the dog brain to dog-directed speech uttered specifically by women may be due to the fact that women speak to dogs more often than men with exaggerated prosody,” says Anna Gábor, co-first author of the study.
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