How Can A Dog Distinguish And Process Various Human Voice Components?

Illustration (Yaroslav Shuraev/Pexels)

JAKARTA - A finding published in the Current Biology Journal shows how dogs can distinguish and process various components of human voices.

This is the same as humans hearing other people speak and then respond not only to what is said -- the consonants and vocals that are assembled into words and sentences -- but also other parts, such as the emotional tone and gender of the speaker.

"While we can't say how much or how dogs understand information, we can say that dogs react to verbal information and related information. These components appear to be being processed in different areas of the dog's brain," Victoria Radcliffe of School of Psychology said at the University of Sussex., reportedANTARA, Friday, September 2nd.

Previous research showed that dogs had a hemispheric bias - the left brain vs right - when they processed the vocalization of other dogs' voices. Ratelee and his partner, David Reby, said the findings disrupted logical steps to investigate whether dogs showed the same bias in responding to information sent in human language.

In this case, they played sounds from various sides of the dog so that the sound entered the dog's ears at the same time and with the same amplitude.

"The input from each ear is mainly transmitted to the opposite part of the brain. If one of the hemispheres (the part of the brain in charge of thought affectively and rationally) is more specifically processing certain information in the sound, then the information is perceived as coming from the opposite ear," said Ratele.

If a dog looks to the left, this shows that the sound is heard more clearly by the left ear. This shows that the right side of the hemisphere is more specific in processing the type of information. The researchers then observed the general bias in the dog's response to certain aspects of the human voice.

When they give orders that are familiarly pronounced on dogs, the dogs also show biases in the left hemisphere process, which is indicated by the behavior of looking to the right. Then, when the intonation or vocal signal of the speaker is excessive, the dog shows significant right hemisphere bias.

"This is very interesting because the findings show that the processing of sound components in the dog's brain is divided between the two hemispheres in a way that is actually very similar to the way of the human brain," Reby said as reported by the Eukaalert public broadcast quoted from Science Daily.

Of course, that doesn't mean dogs really understand everything humans say. Or it can't be said that dogs have human-like language skills.

But, Ratelege said, this result supports the idea that human friends are paying attention to not only who and how we say something but also why we say something. This finding is good news for us because many of us love dogs, spend time with them. They may not always understand, but really listen.