Dogs process words differently to people

The Emory researchers focused on questions surrounding the brain mechanisms dogs use to differentiate between words, or even what constitutes a word to a dog.

For the current study, 12 dogs of varying breeds were trained for months by their owners to retrieve two different objects, based on the objects' names. During one experiment, the trained dog lay in the fMRI scanner while the dog's owner stood directly in front of the dog at the opening of the machine and said the names of the dog's toys at set intervals, then showed the dog the corresponding toys. As a control, the owner then spoke gibberish words, such as "bobbu" and "bodmick," then held up novel objects like a hat or a doll.

The results showed greater activation in auditory regions of the brain to the novel pseudowords relative to the trained words. "We expected to see that dogs neurally discriminate between words that they know and words that they don't," Prichard says. "What's surprising is that the result is opposite to that of research on humans -- people typically show greater neural activation for known words than novel words."

The researchers hypothesize that the dogs may show greater neural activation to a novel word because they sense their owners want them to understand what they are saying, and they are trying to do so. "Dogs ultimately want to please their owners, and perhaps also receive praise or food," Berns says.

"Dogs may have varying capacity and motivation for learning and understanding human words," Berns says, "but they appear to have a neural representation for the meaning of words they have been taught, beyond just a low-level Pavlovian response."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181015120901.htm?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook