Those good boys and girls are now even better.
Research has proven that dogs are able to identify when someone new is speaking to them, or when people are saying a new word to them.
If you’re the type of pet owner that’s convinced your dog can understand what you’re saying, this recent study from the University of Sussex seems to have proven your point.
In terms of the methodology behind the study, researchers looked at whether domestic dogs could recognise the same word when spoken by different people, including people they were unfamiliar with.
They filmed the reaction of these four-legged friends when they heard recordings of men and women speaking a set of short words that sound similar to each other – such as ‘had’, ‘hid’, ‘heard’ and ‘heed’.
Researchers selected words that are not usually associated with commands, so the dogs’ reaction could not be influenced by their training.
The study showed that dogs were able to listen to different people saying the same word and recognise it as the same word, ignoring the differences between speakers.
The dogs also differentiated between people they were unfamiliar with by the sound of their voice alone.
Dr Holly Root-Gutteridge, who led the research, said: “Until now, the spontaneous ability to recognise vowel sounds when spoken by different people was considered to be uniquely human. But many dog owners believe their dogs can learn a word from one person and recognise it when spoken by a second or third person.
“We wanted to test if dogs can recognise the same phonemes – the little sounds that make up words – when spoken by different people, ignoring the differences in accent and pronunciation. The ability to recognise words as the same when spoken by different people is critical to speech as otherwise people wouldn’t be able to recognise words as the same when spoken by different people.
“This research shows that, despite previous assumptions, this spontaneous ability is not uniquely human and that dogs share this linguistic talent, suggesting that speech perception may not be as special to humans as we previously thought.”
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
