Your health: Your dog really does know what you're saying
Your dog knows what you're saying
Your dog gets you. I mean, he really gets you.
No, really - he actually does. So say scientists in Hungary, who have published a groundbreaking study that found dogs understand both the meaning of words and the intonation used to speak them, The Washington Post reports.
Put simply: Even if you use a very excited tone of voice to tell the dog he's going to the vet, he'll probably see through you and be bummed about going.
It had already been established that dogs respond to human voices better than their wolf brethren, are able to match hundreds of objects to words, and can be directed by human speech. But the new findings mean dogs are more like humans than was previously known: They process language using the same regions of the brain as people, according to the researchers, whose paper was published in Science.
To determine this, Attila Andics and colleagues at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest recruited 13 family dogs - mostly golden retrievers and border collies - and trained them to sit totally still for seven minutes in an fMRI scanner that measured their brain activity. (The pups were not restrained, and they "could leave the scanner at any time," the authors assured.)
A female trainer familiar to the dogs then spoke words of praise that all their owners said they used - "that's it," "clever," and "well done" - and neutral words such as "yet" and "if," which the researchers believed were meaningless to the animals. Each dog heard each word in both a neutral tone and a happy, atta-boy tone.
Using the brain activity images, the researchers saw that the dogs processed the familiar words regardless of intonation, and they did so using the left hemisphere, just like humans. Tone, on the other hand, was analyzed in the auditory regions of the right hemisphere - just as it is in people, the study said.
And finally, they saw that the dogs' "rewards center" - which is stimulated by pleasant things such as petting and food and sex - did the brain equivalent of jumping and yelping when positive words were spoken in a positive tone.
"It shows that for dogs, a nice praise can very well work as a reward, but it works best if both words and intonation match," Andics said. "So dogs not only tell apart what we say and how we say it, but they can also combine the two, for a correct interpretation of what those words really meant."
Millennials picking pets over people
Young Americans are less likely to be homeowners, car owners or parents than their predecessors, but they do lead in one category: pets, The Washington Post reports.
Three-fourths of Americans in their 30s have dogs, while 51 percent have cats, according to a survey released by research firm Mintel. That compares to 50 percent of the overall population with dogs, and 35 percent with cats.
The findings come at a time when millennials, roughly defined as the generation born between 1980 and 2000, are half as likely to be married or living with a partner than they were 50 years ago. They are also delaying parenthood and demanding flexible work arrangements - all of which, researchers say, has translated to higher rates of pet ownership.
"Pets are becoming a replacement for children," said Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of "Generation Me." "They're less expensive. You can get one even if you're not ready to live with someone or get married, and they can still provide companionship."
Millennial men, it turns out, are more likely to look for companionship in pets. Among those surveyed, 71 percent of men between ages 18 and 34 had dogs (versus 62 percent of women), while 48 percent had cats (versus 35 percent of women).
"Men are more willing to put in the time and effort of taking care of a pet," said Rebecca Cullen, an analyst at Mintel. "Women are more likely to feel they are away from home too much and that pets require too much work."