Recent studies by American scientists have shed light on the secrets of our four-legged friends. Biologists announced that dogs understand human speech. Scientists officially stated that domestic quadrupeds comprehend speech. Moreover, they can distinguish empty phrases that carry no semantic load.
Dogs understand human speech
Experiments with dogs were conducted using MRI. The study involved 12 adult animals. First, the dogs were familiarized with objects by calling their names. The animals were also shown and called by commands. Then, the dog was placed under a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, and the indicators were observed while reading words to the animal.
The results for all dogs participating in the experiment were the same. The four-legged friend responded to object names and commands but ignored empty phrases and unknown words. The Americans decided to continue research in this direction to find out if the results of the experiments can be improved.
Perhaps, scientists will manage to get closer to another mystery involving the lives of our smaller brothers. So close, in fact, that a Nobel Prize might not be far off – tease the experimenters in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.
