Dog owners probably thought at least once that their pets understood the meaning of certain words. There is a high probability that these guesses were true - a study by scientists from Emory University has proven that dogs can associate words with certain objects. The results of the work were published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. In the process, scientists discovered an unexpected feature of canine thinking.
The experiment involved 12 dogs of different breeds, trained to sit motionless inside a tomographic apparatus. The owners of the "good boys" were given the task of teaching them to bring different objects, hearing their names, for several months. To make it easier for dogs to distinguish objects, one of them was soft and the other hard. When the dog brought the correct item, it was given a treat. The owners were also given an additional task - to pronounce non-existent words and show objects previously not seen by pets.
Months later, the dogs were placed in a tomographic machine to study their brain activity at the sight of various objects. The study yielded several interesting results at once. First, dogs actually understand previously learned words - this is referred to by the indicators of brain activity. Secondly, they almost instantly recognize unknown words - their brain activity is significantly increased. Third, different brain regions are activated in different breeds of dogs.
The researchers were surprised by the second result, because in humans, everything happens the other way around - the human brain actively reacts only to familiar words, and treats unfamiliar ones more calmly. It is believed that dogs pay more attention to unfamiliar words due to the desire to please the owner or receive a treat.
Scientists study with interest the thinking of dogs, but some of them believe that they are smart, while others are not. For example, recent studies have proven that dogs have senses, but at the same time, scientists from the University of Exeter and Canterbury University have announced that four-legged friends are not as smart as they seem.
Ramis Ganiev