Many people assume their dogs can only process the tone of their speech — but experiments by Victoria Ratcliffe , a psychology researcher at the University of Sussex, suggest their brains are processing the actual words, as well. In human brains, the left hemisphere primarily processes language, and the right hemisphere primarily processes emotion and tone. Sound that enters our right ear is directed to the left hemisphere — and vice versa. So for most people, we disproportionately interpret language using sound from our right ear and interpret tone with the left.
Ratcliffe showed that dogs have the same bias. When they played commands the dogs were familiar with, the dogs disproportionately turned to the right, and when they played distorted speech, or commands in a language the dogs had never heard before, they mostly turned to the left.
In ongoing work, she's looking at exactly what information dogs associate with words they've learned. Some fMRI work — which involves training dogs to lie still for up to 30 seconds in scanners, which track blood flow to different areas of the brain as a proxy for brain activity — has confirmed these findings. A dog sits in an fMRI machine as part of Berns's experiments.
Berns et al. In one of his most striking experiments , Berns found that when dogs sniffed a rag soaked in their owner's scent, activity spiked in their caudate nucleus — a reward center involved in emotional attachment. But it didn't spike when a stranger's scent was used instead. He also found that the same spike occurs when a dog's owner walks into the room, but not when strangers do.
In more recent experiments , Berns has put dogs in an fMRI and had various people show them a signal that means they're about to get a treat. More aggressive dogs, on the other hand, showed equal spikes in the reward system when any human gave the signal.
His lab is now working with service dog organizations to see if this sort of test could be used to see which dogs are most suitable for service. Traditionally, the emotion of jealousy was thought to occur only in primates. But a few different recent studies have provided evidence that dogs feel it, too. In one experiment , researchers from the University of Vienna first trained dogs to present their paw that is, "shake hands" in exchange for a treat. They then conducted the experiment with pairs of dogs, arbitrarily rewarding only one, and found that the other dog stopped participating.
This wasn't just frustration at not getting a treat: when the same dogs participated in the experiment alone, and didn't have the chance to see another dog getting rewarded, they participated for a much longer period of time without rewards. In another study , meanwhile, psychology researcher Christine Harris confirmed what many dog owners have long suspected: the animals also get jealous over attention given to other dogs.
In the experiment, she had owners ignore their dogs, giving attention to either a pop-up book or a robotic stuffed dog toy that could bark and wag its tail. Comments are welcome while open. We reserve the right to close comments at any time. Join the conversation Create account. Already have an account? Cognitive abilities vary among humans, is the same true of other species? CBC Radio Loaded. Just as some humans are smarter than others, the same is true of other species.
Social Sharing. Scoring: Give your dog three points if he figures out how to free himself in under fifteen seconds, two points if it takes fifteen to thirty seconds, and one point if it takes more than thirty seconds. Place a treat on the floor and place a towel over it. Grab your stopwatch and see how long it takes for the dog to get the treat.
Scoring: Give your dog three points if he figures in under fifteen seconds, two points if it takes fifteen to sixty seconds, and one point if it takes more than sixty seconds. Place two or three empty buckets or cups upside down in a row. While your pup watches, place a treat under one of the containers.
Distract him for a few seconds before allowing him to look for the treat. This test will help determine how well your dog can learn and retain information. Scoring: Give him three points if he goes straight to the container hiding the treat, two if he checks one empty container before finding the right one, and one point if he checks both wrong containers before locating the treat. Scoring: Give your dog three points if it takes him under a minute to reach for the treat using only his paw.
If he tries to fit his head into the space first, or uses both his nose and paws, give him two points, and one point if he gives up entirely. This one will require a bit of creativity on your behalf but nevertheless it is a good test to give your dog. To find out which dogs had the top school smarts, Coren collected data from more than dog obedience judges from the United States and Canada. At the bottom of the intelligence barrel, Coren would include many of the hounds, such as the bassett hound and the Afghan hound, along with the bulldog, beagle and basenji a hunting dog.
He added that there's a "high probability that we've been breeding dogs so they're more responsive to human beings and human signals.
Many of these smarty-pants are also the most popular pets. We also love the beagle, which made it to the top 10 list of most popular dog breeds in by the American Kennel Club. That's because they are so sweet and socialable, Coren said. And sometimes the dim-wits make better pets. While a smart dog will figure out everything you want it to know, your super pet will also learn everything it can get away with, Coren warns. Jeanna is the editor-in-chief of Live Science.
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