New research has looked into how much dogs can really understand when we talk to them.
There has long been debate among scientists whether dogs can understand certain words, such as "treat" or "walkies".
A new study has used brain scans to find out if that is indeed the case.
- Can you make your dog go vegan?
- New Zealanders top dogs in Trans-Tasman competition
- Chinese man discovers pet dog isn't really a dog, gives it away
"Many dog owners think that their dogs know what some words mean, but there really isn't much scientific evidence to support that," said lead author Ashley Prichard of Emory's Department of Psychology.
"We wanted to get data from the dogs themselves - not just owner reports," Prichard told 7 News.
The researchers scanned dog's brains while they looked at toys and their owners said the toy's names, to find out if the dogs could draw a connection between the toy and the word.
"We know that dogs have the capacity to process at least some aspects of human language since they can learn to follow verbal commands," said Emory neuroscientist Gregory Berns.
Twelve dogs of varying breeds were trained for months by their owners to retrieve two different objects, based on the objects' names, 7 News reports.
During the experiment, the owners spoke gibberish words and held up objects, to see if the dogs could truly match words to the toys.
The researchers found activation in auditory regions of the brain when confronted with something new, which suggests the dogs knew when it was a new word.
"We expected to see that dogs neurally discriminate between words that they know and words that they don't," said Prichard.
The researchers said it may be because the dogs want to understand the new words to please their owners.
Newshub.
