A ground-breaking observational study has found that dogs understand words regardless of whether they are spoken by their owners or by an audio device. The findings, published this Wednesday in the scientific journal Plos One, challenge the belief that dogs only respond to their owners’ body language.
The research focused on the use of sound boxes – sound buttons that reproduce words when pressed – and concluded that dogs respond to expressions such as “play” or “go”, whether spoken by their owners or coming from a loudspeaker.
TWO EXPERIMENTS, MORE ANSWERS
A study conducted in 2022 consisted of two experiments. In the first, researchers visited the homes of 30 dogs in different parts of the United States to evaluate their reactions to sounds made by sound boards. The second used citizen science: 29 dog owners conducted tests in their homes under the remote guidance of a research team.
“These results underscore the importance of studying pets in their natural environment to better understand their cognitive abilities.”says Federico Rossano, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego and lead author of the study. “They show that dogs respond to the words themselves, not just the body signals associated with them.”
RESEARCH WITH A GLOBAL REACH
This study is part of a larger research project involving thousands of dogs from around the world. The research opens new doors to understanding the intelligence of dogs, showing that their ability to understand words goes beyond simple training and is due to a deeper understanding of human speech.
