Content
Do dogs understand humans? Do you understand our feelings? Do you understand our words and our language? If you're a dog's best friend, you've probably asked this question more than once, but finally here's the answer.
Recently, a study by the journal science, unraveled some canine brain mysteries, for example, that dogs use mechanisms similar to those of humans to distinguish words and different types of intonation.
The main author of the research is Attila Andics, scientist in the department of Ethology of the MTA-ELTE at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Read on and find out how dogs understand humans in this comprehensive Animal Expert article.
How do dogs understand humans?
People use the left hemisphere to understand and correctly relate the use of linguistics as well as a region in the right hemisphere of the brain to understand intonation. On the other hand, dogs, although they are unable to speak, can understand certain words that has been used frequently in their daily environment. Neurolinguistics is therefore not exclusive to homo sapiens.
This is one of the first studies that deeply analyzed the language and brains of dogs with different experiences to result in a question that perhaps many already knew the answer to: do dogs understand humans?
Dogs generally tend to learn the meaning of words that are relevant to their daily lives, especially the ones that are used to refer to them. However, it is important to point out that dogs usually remember positive words more easily, especially those we use as a reinforcement or as an order of release.
The study was the key to knowing that dogs understand humans. For this, 12 dogs were educated teaching them to remain immobile, so it was possible to properly capture a brain magnetic resonance. In this way, it was possible to measure the brain activity of these dogs when they were stimulated with praise or neutral intonations.
It was determined that dogs, regardless of using the right hemisphere to understand the intonation, always used the left, which allowed them to decipher the meaning of the words. Therefore, apart from being guided by a friendly and cheerful tone, dogs are able to understand what we are telling them (or at least try to find out).
As we have always argued in PeritoAnimal, the use of positive reinforcement works and is effective when the word and intonation go together and give the result dog acceptance to feel in a comfortable environment.
Loving and respecting our dog is essential for us to communicate with him properly and get him to understand us. Screaming, punishment methods and other inappropriate techniques often generate stress and anxiety in the dog, impairing their learning and their state of emotional well-being.
Now that you know your dog understands you, what are you going to teach him? Tell us!
