It’s a very solid and interesting finding. A new study shows that dogs perceive spoken words in a sophisticated way long thought unique to humans.
The researchers at the University of Sussex in Brighton, U.K. filmed 42 dogs of different breeds as they sat with their owners near an audio speaker that played six monosyllabic, noncommand words with similar sounds, such as “had,” “hid,” and “who’d.” The words were spoken – not by the dog’s owner – but by several strangers, men and women of different ages and with different accents.
The test indicates that dogs recognize words irrespective of the speaker – and that they don’t need any training to do it. We can see that dogs’ reactions to words that are not commands or requests. It demonstrates that “dogs are listening to us.”
Source: sciencemag.org
