Why do dogs behave the way they do?
In Short
A new study published in the journal Science shows that dogs process continuous human speech using a consonant bias, mirroring human word-segmentation abilities through everyday exposure.
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Why do dogs behave the way they do?
‘A dog is a man’s best friend’ is an oft-repeated statement one hears and reads about. In the recent past, there have been regular news reports on dogs and their lives, especially in Indian cities, which has made even diehards worry if this observation is entirely true. The unbridled menace they have become in urban settlements, with rising cases of dog bites and fear-inducing rabid behaviour has made dog lovers scramble for cover or put up a stout defence in their favour whenever the topic comes up.
A Supreme Court ruling on the subject which rightly raised pertinent questions whether dogs are more important than humans has dimmed the aura around animal lovers, who are seen as a nuisance by some in gated communities and closely built apartments and colonies. So, have dogs started turning foes from the friendly status they have known to be enjoying with human beings for over 15,000 years if history is to be believed? Not an easy solution to arrive at, but the deep emotional connections that dogs have enjoyed with their masters and guardians has kept them under watch by a wide section of people, not just welfare activists who prioritise humans over their lesser-evolved species.
Of course, researchers have continuously worked on dogs, their abilities and why they enjoy such an exalted status among men and women in modern societies. A new study suggests that dogs might segment human speech into words in a way seen only in humans, and that they might acquire this ability through regular, everyday exposure to human speech. The findings indicate that an efficient speech processing may not necessarily be a consequence of humans’ unique language abilities, researchers say. Regular exposure to speech alone can reshape how the brain functions, even in a mammalian species evolutionarily distant from humans, findings published in the elite journal Science show. The researchers compared the brain responses of 20 humans and 20 companion dogs to speech.
The participants listened to continuous, un-segmented speech streams, which were of three types -- three-syllable words with consonants forming word skeletons with freely varying vowels, vowels forming word skeletons and syllables following each other randomly. Brain’s electrical activity was measured using non-invasive EEG. They also observed a distinct change in the brain’s electrical activity in both humans and dogs around 400 milliseconds after the beginning of each word, but only for consonant-structured words. Interestingly, it was noticed that tuning to the characteristics of speech does not emerge only in dogs that were already living in a speech-rich environment during the first months of life, when they are especially sensitive to social experiences.
Dogs that had spent their first three months living on the street or in a shelter, rather than as family pets, showed a similarly strong consonant bias. It is a no-brainer if one surmises that it must be stating the obvious given that dogs have always responded well to a set of commands from their owners to condition their behaviour to suit the needs of its benefactors. Partly true, but it is also a mirror to animal reactions who spend most of their living years among humans, imbibing their moods and manners and exhibiting their moods in a manner typically their own.
