We already knew it. And when we say "we", we mean all aristopeters, all people who love pets, live with them, and learn from them every day. But sometimes it seems that society needs "confirmation from the scientific community" to validate certain facts observed by "ordinary" people.
A few weeks ago, news reports and newspaper headlines worldwide echoed the study published by the journal Science, which demonstrated that dogs have the ability to distinguish the words we use when we speak to them and the intonation we use. The study also revealed that dogs use brain regions similar to those humans use, leading researchers to conclude that the capacity for vocabulary learning is not exclusively human. (Something that, without a doubt, must have annoyed all staunch anthropocentrists, right? It was about time someone reminded them that we are not the center of the world...)
To conduct the study, scientists placed thirteen dogs of different breeds in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine to study their reactions to language. The results revealed that dogs recognized each word as something distinct, regardless of the intonation. Furthermore, they did so using the left hemisphere of the brain, just as we do.
This study is the first step to understanding how dogs interpret human speech and can help to understand and make communication between dogs and us more efficient. Words are the main element of language and communication. Intonation is another way information is conveyed. People understand speech through vocabulary and intonation. And the researchers' goal was to check if these two mechanisms also work separately in dogs and how they do it. To do this, dogs listened to recordings of their trainers' voices combining different praise words and neutral words with various types of intonation.
Dogs distinguished both the meaning of words and the intonation with which they were spoken. And they processed intonation separately from vocabulary, just as we do. The conclusion drawn from all this is that dogs not only differentiate what we say and how we say it, but they can combine both elements to correctly interpret what those words mean.
To explain dogs' comprehension of speech, the authors point out that canine domestication may have influenced the emergence of a brain structure that allows them this ability. However, they add that it is very unlikely that they will develop the necessary speech-related capacities (although many of us know that one of their gazes is worth more than a thousand words...).
We are greatly pleased that science is gradually proving all of us aristopeters right. Because although we are not dedicated to research, we have something that not everyone has: daily life with our pets. And our hearts do not lie. That experience is what allows us to validate, before anyone else, what our dogs are like, what they think, and what they feel.