Hungarian researchers claim dogs understand what humans say

Or at least some of it. According to Femina.hu, researchers at Eötvös Loránd University claim that dogs understand more of what humans say than previously thought.

It is quite understandable. The moment someone gets a dog, they start talking to them, getting familiar with them. They talk to them like they talk to other humans and dogs understand more of that than was previously thought. The new research claims that they not only understand what people say but how they say it.

Researchers of ELTE, Attila Andich and his colleagues involved 13 dogs living with families in their research, mostly border collies and golden retrievers, doing fascinating investigations. First off, the dogs were taught to sit calmly in an MRI machine so that their brain activity could be followed. However, it is important to note that they could walk away free as soon as they got bored of the examination.

The research involved the owners recording various praises and commands in different tones. With the help of this, scientists could observe what hearing the different words in different tones triggered in the dogs’ brains.