(KSNW) – A new study from scientists at the University of Geneva in Switzerland shows that if you want your dog to listen to what you tell it, you should slow down your speaking.
It has already been shown that dogs are unusually skilled at understanding human social and communicative behavior and capable of learning a large number of words.
The study, “Dog—human vocal interactions match dogs’ sensory-motor tuning,” examined human speech and dog vocalizations and compared oscillograms of humans and dogs. Thirty dogs of varying sizes and breeds with normal hearing and 27 humans of multiple languages were used for the study.
EEGs were used to monitor each dog’s brain activity and response to command words that they knew and sentences of praise from their owners that they were familiar with. It then modified the speed and frequency of the words.
The study found that dogs vocalize at about two syllables per second, while humans vocalize an average of four syllables per second. However, when humans speak to dogs, they typically slow down to three syllables per second.
The study’s authors say the evidence supports the hypothesis that humans have been altering their speech pattern with dogs to exploit their audio processing since the early days of domestication. They say more research needs to be done to determine if this is also the case for other domesticated animals like cats or livestock.
The study was published Oct. 1 in the Biology section of the Public Library of Science (PLOS) Journal.
