Translated material
Four -legged listeners
Dogs understand more than we are used to thinking. And although the owners of barbos and balls have known this for a long time, undeniable evidence has been found only now. Scientists of the University of Budapest (Hungary) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) investigated how dogs perceive human speech. It turns out that our four -legged friends recognize speech in the same way as people. To understand the words, they use the left hemisphere, and to understand the intonation - right, then combine the information. Scientists published the results of their work in the journal Science [1].
The correspondent of our newspaper Inna Vorobei learned about the details of the experiments from the leading author of the work, an employee of the Faculty of Etology of the University of Budapest and the Family Dog Project project ( Attila and Attila Andics) [2].
During the experiment, the dogs lay motionless in a tomograph and listened to the recorded voice of a woman instructor. She pronounced laudatory words - “good”, “well done”, “good boy” - with laudatory and neutral intonation, neutral words that did not mean anything for dogs - “however”, “nevertheless” - with laudatory and neutral intonation. The praise was most very activated (caused by blood flow) the reward center in dogs - the brain area that responds to pleasant stimuli, such as food. But this happened only if the intonation and the laudatory word coincided. If the dogs heard neutral words with neutral intonation, then the activation of the zones of the brain did not occur.
The work of Hungarian scientists allows, on the one hand, to understand how dogs recognize a person’s speech, make a person’s communication with a dog more effective. On the other hand, she sheds light on how words arose in the process of evolution of the language. Obviously, the ability of the brain to process speech developed earlier than expected, and it is inherent not only to a person. Other animals can also understand speech, but they are not interested in this, unlike dogs.
- Attila, please tell us what the Faculty of Ethology works on?
- Our faculty has been working with dogs for the past twenty years, studying their behavior and cognitive (mental) abilities. We conduct different experiments, including behavioral, genetic. The main idea of working with dogs is
The fact that for them the natural habitat is the house and family of man. Twenty years ago, ethologists (zoologists who study the genetically determined animal behavior. - Note. Ed. ) Did not work with dogs, because dogs, unlike other animals, do not live in their natural habitat. The founder of our faculty came up with a magnificent thought: “Hey, and after all, dogs have a natural habitat is a human social environment. And we can study them in this environment. ” We can compare people and dogs, how they process social signals, such as speech. This is more justified than comparing a person and a monkey, a person and a rat, a mouse, because these are other species that do not live in a natural environment of a person. When I come home, I hear the dog barking, and the dog hears a person’s speech every day. We will not say so about macaques or rats.
- Why did you decide to explore the dogs, not cats, say, they also live next to a person, in the same environment as the dogs?
- Cats, of course, are also a very interesting look. But it is much easier to work with dogs. It is easier to ask the dog to do what you want. For example, a cat will not lie motionless in a tomograph. It is very important for us to cooperate with animals. We never force the animal to do anything against the will in experiments. We never force them to bark, do not tie their heads in experiments with a tomograph.
Another moment is associated with social signals. We do not think that dogs have a special brain mechanism to process human social signals or human speech. But they show more interest than other animals, to social signals, especially to speech. Dogs feel attachment to people, want to delight them. For them, a person is associated with safety. For cats - not so. If the dog is scared, then she will run to its owner. If the cat is scared, then they will run away. And we use this increased attention, increased attachment of dogs.
- How many people and animals take part in the Family Dog project?
- About thirty employees, including independent researchers and graduate students, as well as some students who conduct their own experiments. We work with family dogs, we do not have laboratory dogs. Before each experiment, we announce that dog owners can participate in it with their pet. More than a hundred dogs have already taken part in our experiments. In the last experiment with brain scanning, we worked only with thirteen dogs. This is not so much, but we need dogs trained to lie motionless in the tomograph, they are brought every week for training and the hosts are interested in continuing this experiment.
- What are the most important result of your research.
- In this work, we studied how dogs process human speech. And I think the most important conclusion is that the dog’s brain can separately process the meaning of the word and intonation - that is, lexical and intonation information, and then combine all this in order to obtain a single meaning or general image. This is very similar to how people process speech signals. The meaning of the word and intonation are processed by us with different hemispheres, then we also unite these things. This is exactly what we teach our children: it is important not only what you say, but also as you say. This rule also works with dogs.
- How did you come to study, how do dogs understand a person’s speech?
- We are talking with our dogs all the time. Today there are no other neuroimulating (making processes in the brain. - approx. Ed. ) Experiments where we could get such information about dogs or other animals. These studies interest me not only in terms of dog studying. By education, I am a psycholinguist - a researcher of the brain, human language. For some time I studied the human brain. And when I joined this group of scientists, I realized: if you look into the dog’s brain, compare what seems to be different, and this will help to better understand how, in principle, the language arose, it is better to understand the evolution of the language as a whole. Dogs are a good model for comparison with a person when it comes to understanding the language.
- Was this the first experiment with animals in a tomograph in general or the first with dogs?
- We started experiments with dogs in a tomograph several years ago. My colleague Marta Gatsi (Márta Gácsi) then began to train dogs. In 2014, we studied how they react to a person’s voice. Basically, other species of animals, such as macaques and rats, are examined in tomographs, but these are animals strewn with anesthesia. If you explore waking macaques, then you must fix their skull, force you to do what you want. Small animals, such as mice or rats, are often used in pharmaceutical studies. And again, they need to either be strewn or fixed.
- How did you teach dogs to lie motionless in a tomograph?
- The training of each individual dog takes several months. And here are no tricks. This is a step -by -step teaching methodology - the dog learns to do nothing, only to lie motionless. She understands that the instructor can please the instructor. She is happy when she understands what they want from her. In one lesson, we always teach more than one dog. One dog already knows what to do. The second sits next to the Tomograph's couch and watches. In her eyes you can see: I also want to be there, in this happy place. This is a delightful moment! She really wants it! The dog, which is already trained, becomes a model for another dog and at the same time its rival. This is called an imitative method. It is very useful for our training, because dogs do not sleep during the experiment and behave naturally. One stage of the experiment lasts seven minutes, and in these seven minutes the dog should not budge. Otherwise, we will have to rewrite all the data. If you apply force or use other methods, then this will not work. You can force the dog to lie motionless for one minute, but not to lie completely motionless for several minutes. It is necessary that the dogs do this voluntarily. Our dogs are happy volunteers!
-Are there any methods how to teach a dog to understand words, is there any special strategy?
- Such brain studies show that it makes sense to talk to our dogs. They select information from a certain sequence of sounds and remember it. Words that owners often use to praise their dogs, such as “well done”, “good dog”, “good”, dogs can learn. You need to use similar or the same words constantly for certain situations. When we begin to use a new word, it can be associated with the environment, intonation, gesture and the whole situation. And the dog can learn it. If the owner uses different words for one message, then the dog has less chance of learning a new word. The praise acts on the dog in the same way as a reward, for example, food, but this works only if both the word and intonation are laudatory. If you pronounce an unfamiliar word with laudatory intonation or a familiar word with neutral intonation, then this will not work.
- Tell us about your plans for the future. What else do you plan to explore?
- So far we have taken only the first step. They made sure that it is possible to study the brain of an awake dog. There are still many interesting questions that you can look for answers, in addition to studying how dogs process speech. For example, you can find out how they distinguish speakers, how they distinguish speech sounds, how new words represent when they are taught. Language is a very complex phenomenon, and the meaning of the word, emotional intonation is a very small aspect of what would be interesting to explore. I think our method of teaching dogs opens up many opportunities for a comparative study of the brain.
- What laboratories conduct similar research? Who are you working with?
- There is a laboratory in Mexico, where Laura V. Cuaya is the first author of the study, how dogs recognize the faces of people. The American laboratory where Gregory Berns and his colleagues also explore waking dogs. Maybe one more in Europe, where they try to work with non -burning dogs, but basically they work with animals under anesthesia. We began to cooperate with the Mexican laboratory. Their method of teaching dogs and how they scan them dogs are very similar to ours. A few months ago they were with us. Now we are only at the beginning of the journey, we need more experience, more data, more independent research to standardize all those pioneer conclusions to which we have come. After a few years, we will see what our work will lead to.
- Do you have your own dog?
- I do not have my own dog. But my brother, who lives with her parents, has a dog. I can come with children at any time and chat with her. Because of the school and work, we cannot take care of the dog. Therefore, this is perfect for us.
Attila Andix
Inna sparrow talked
1. Http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/08/26/science.aaf3777