Dogs’ brains are sensitive to the familiar high-pitched “cute” voice tone that adult humans, especially women, use to talk to babies, according to a new study.
The research, published recently in the journal Communications Biology, found “exciting similarities” between infant and dog brains during the processing of speech with such a high-pitched tone feature.
Humans tend to speak with a specific speech style characterised by exaggerated prosody, or patterns of stress and intonation in a language, when communicating with individuals having limited language competence.
Such speech has previously been found to be very important for the healthy cognitive, social and language development of children, who are also tuned to such a high-pitched voice.
But researchers, including those from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, hoped to assess whether dog brains are also sensitive to this way of communication.
In the study, conscious family dogs were made to listen to dog, infant and adult-directed speech recorded from 12 women and men in real-life interactions.
As the dogs listened, their brain activities were measured using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan.
The study found the sound-processing regions of the dogs’ brains responded more to dog- and infant-directed than adult-directed speech.
This marked the first neurological evidence that dog brains are tuned to speech directed specifically at them.
“Studying how dog brains process dog-directed speech is exciting, because it can help us understand how exaggerated prosody contributes to efficient speech processing in a nonhuman species skilled at relying on different speech cues,” explained Anna Gergely, co-first author of the study.
Scientists also found dog- and infant-directed speech sensitivity of dog brains was more pronounced when the speakers were women, and was affected by voice pitch and its variation.
These findings suggest the way we speak to dogs matters, and that their brain is specifically sensitive to the higher-pitched voice tone typical to the female voice.
“Remarkably, the voice tone patterns characterizing women’s dog-directed speech are not typically used in dog-dog communication – our results may thus serve evidence for a neural preference that dogs developed during their domestication,” said Anna Gábor, co-first author of the study.
“Dog brains’ increased sensitivity to dog-directed speech spoken by women specifically may be due to the fact that women more often speak to dogs with exaggerated prosody than men,” Dr Gabor said.
Malnourished and Helpless Mother Dog Desperately Seeks Adoption While Nurturing Her Six Puppies
Seeing an animal suffer is one of the most upsetting sights we can witness in our lives. When we hear stories that touch our emotions, it’s difficult to walk on without wondering if they had happy endings. That is possibly why we feel comforted when we see animal lovers and rescuers compassionately helping these terrible animals.
And here is the story of Hope’s little daughter and her offspring, who were abandoned long before the dog gave birth. This truth made it painfully evident that the unfortunate animal had to suffer for a long time.
The sad truth was only revealed when an animal rights activist approached the area where the hairy girl lay. Hope was cuddled by the female, who assured her that she was nursing six little puppies. As a demonstrator, she declared she had never witnessed anything so destructive to her spirit.
“I was ready to feed all the dogs when Hope, a female who was half her type’s size and could hardly move, approached me with her sparkling eyes,” the rescuer explained.
She took her in her arms tenderly and without hesitation. She learned there were ten cubs, four of which died as a result of the savagery they had been put to alongside their mother and siblings.
Some of these innocent little canines perished as a result of snake bites, others as a result of harsh weather, but the four that died unfairly, with no one to blame, were truly tragic.
Hope was in a precarious situation. Her weight was less than half that of an animal her size, breed, and age. She did needed to feed eight cubs in order to keep them all alive.
The lady realized she had to do everything she could to ensure that the animals could be adopted and receive the care they needed to live and heal. As a result, she began to provide for certain families who took charge of their own life.
One of the baptized children, Teddy, now lives like a king. The activist promises him that she will always love him and be his godmother, and she is glad for the aid.
Caramelo and Tobby were also adopted, while Lola, Coco, and Max were still waiting for their families. Max, on the other hand, died in agony from a gastrointestinal infection.
“Thankfully, Coco is now with a new family; Lola was still behind, but the efforts continued,” the campaigner stated.
Hope has already been sterilized, and all of the children have found loving homes, much to everyone’s satisfaction.
Despite the fact that they were late for Lola, she was finally able to fly after 7 months of waiting. Since then, she has been enjoying her new life with her brother Alex.
Despite her problems, Hope is a vibrant young woman who is eager to share her love and friendship. You will never have to go through the anguish of a road maternity again. Share this emotional savior with others.
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