Many a dog ruver has been accused of being a “crazy dog lady/man” for saying their pups can really understand them, but now science is on their side! Researchers from Hungary placed dogs in an MRI scanner and discovered that the canine mind reacts to voices in the same way as a human brain does!
“The location (of the activity) in the dog brain is very similar to where we found it in the human brain. The fact that we found these areas exist at all in the dog brain at all is a surprise – it is the first time we have seen this in a non-primate,” says Attila Andics, from the Hungarian Academy of Science’s Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest.
Crying babehs have the same effect on hooman and dogekind.
Researchers played the dogs 200 sounds, both environmental and vocal, and found that crying, laughter and other emotionally charged sounds prompted a similar display of brain activity. Perhaps the explains why our pups are so attuned to human emotion and displays of doggy empathy!
Andics added, “It would be interesting to see the animal’s response to words rather than just sounds. When we cry and laugh, they are much more like animal calls and this might be causing this response. A step further would be if they had gone in and shown sensitivity to words in the language their owners speech.”
