MAN’S BEST FRIEND

Scientists Make Bombshell Discovery About Dogs and Human Speech

Neuroscientists used an electroencephalogram to study how human and dog brains responded to speech.

Canine brains process language in a “human-like” way, according to a new study from researchers at Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University. Researchers compared the responses of 20 humans and 20 companion dogs to speech streams with varying consonant and vowel patterns, measuring electrical activity in the brain. They found that the dogs paid special attention to consonant sounds—a technique human infants also use when first learning to decipher language. “In a continuous speech stream, it is easier to detect individual words when we focus on consonants,” Attila Andics, cognitive neuroscientist and co-author, told The Independent. “And from infancy onward, this is exactly what the human brain tends to do. This phenomenon is known as the consonant bias.” The researchers say this is the first evidence that a consonant bias can appear in the brain of a non-human animal.