Dogs receive language similarly to human

The dogs perceive human language much like people, detecting who says what and how to do it, according to a study presented today in the British journal "Current Biology".

A team of researchers from the University of Sussex (UK) found that the various components of language, as the meaning or intonation are processed in different hemispheres of the brain.

Over several experiments performed with 25 dogs, researchers reproduced sounds in both ears of the animals at a time. Each of the times especially emphasized a component such as transmitting the meaning of a word or phrase or one that includes information about the speaker and voice. In doing so they observed what direction turned their heads, which allowed cerebral hemisphere deduce that each component is processed.

"What comes to one ear is transmitted in much the opposite cerebral hemisphere," said Victoria Ratcliffe, one of the study's authors. "When one of the cerebral hemispheres are specialized to process certain pieces of information, is perceived as coming from the opposite ear." So if a dog turns his head to the left to hear a particular sound means that the information it contains is processed mainly in the right hemisphere.

Through experiments it was determined that the component which transmits meaning is processed in the left hemisphere, whereas the emotional component is processed in the right hemisphere.

"It's very interesting because the results show that language processing in the brain of dogs is divided into two hemispheres, so much as it does in the case of humans," said David Reby, another of the researchers. This does not mean that dogs understand everything they say humans, but surely they perceive who says what and what is said.

It now remains to investigate whether this like language processing is a consequence of domestication and if it is also similar in other domestic and wild animals.

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