Research shows that dogs can understand more than just basic commands, at least when it comes to things they value.
Researchers that observed the brain activity of cooperative dogs while they were given balls, slippers, leashes, and other highlights of the domestic dog world found that dogs understood what specific words mean.
According to the research, the dog brain is capable of understanding nouns—at least those that pertain to something the animal is interested in—better than it can with instructions like “sit,” “fetch,” and the mania-inducing “walkies.”
“I believe that all dogs possess this ability,” stated Marianna Boros, who assisted in setting up the tests at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University. “This modifies our conception of what makes humans unique as well as our understanding of language evolution.”
The question of whether dogs can actually learn word meanings has long captivated scientists.
In 2011, South Carolina psychologists revealed that after three years of rigorous training, a border collie named Chaser had acquired the names of almost 1,000 things, including 800 cloth toys, 116 balls, and 26 Frisbees. This finding provided additional concrete proof of the cognitive capability of dogs.
Nevertheless, research on the processing of words in the canine brain has been rather limited. Boros and her associates asked eighteen dog owners to bring their dogs to the lab with five familiar things for their pets in order to further investigate the enigma. Balls, slippers, Frisbees, rubber toys, leashes, and other objects were among them.
Before displaying an object to their dog at the lab, owners were told to utter certain phrases for it or use a different one. An owner could wave a Frisbee in place of the ball when they say, “Look, here’s the ball.” Multiple iterations of the trials were conducted using both non-matching and matching items.
Non-invasive electroencephalography, or EEG, was used by researchers to track the dogs’ brain activity throughout the examinations. When the items coincided or disagreed with the words their owner spoke, the traces showed distinct patterns of behavior. When it came to terms that owners thought their dogs understood the best, the differences in the traces were more noticeable.
When humans conducted the tests, similar blips in EEG recordings were seen, which were explained as people comprehending a word sufficiently to establish a mental image that was either affirmed or confused by the item they were subsequently given.
The findings “provide the first neural evidence for object word knowledge in a non-human animal,” according to a study published in Current Biology by the authors.
Boros clarified that she wasn’t saying dogs could understand speech as well as people could. More research is required to determine, for instance, if dogs are able to generalize in the same way as baby humans can and realize that a “ball” need not always refer to a single, highly chewed spongy spherical.
The study begs the question of why a greater percentage of dogs do not demonstrate their understanding of certain terms. One theory is that a dog understands the meaning of a term but is uninterested in using it. Boros remarked, “My dog only cares about his ball.” “He doesn’t care at all whether I bring him another toy.”
The discovery is “fascinating,” according to Dr. Holly Root-Gutteridge, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lincoln who was not involved in the study.
“I think it’s unlikely that this started during domestication, so it may be widespread throughout mammals,” the speaker added, making it very intriguing. That alone is really fascinating because it sheds fresh insight on the evolution of language.
It’s possible that the dogs aren’t engaged in the game of “fetch this specific thing” enough to follow our current training and testing regimen. Even if your dog understands what you’re saying, he may decide not to respond.
