A small study analyzing brain wave activity in dogs has revealed that these animals are capable of understanding that certain words refer to specific objects in a manner similar to humans, providing deeper insight into how the minds of man's best friend work. The ability of these four-legged friends to recognize words that lead to actions should not come as a surprise to dog owners who frequently ask their pets to "sit" or "fetch" items.
However, the study, which analyzed the brain activity of 18 dogs, provided evidence that dogs can activate a memory of something when they hear its name. The research was conducted at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and published in the journal Current Biology. Mariana Buró, a co-author of the study, stated, "There has been a long debate about the ability of non-human animals to understand word reference." She added, "Despite behavioral reports, they have always been about exceptional cases. Our study is the first that indicates this capability is at the species level."
During the study, dog owners said words referring to objects that their pets recognized. In some instances, they presented the dog with something that matched the word, while in other cases, the item did not match. The results revealed that the patterns in the dogs' brains differed when the words matched the objects compared to when there was no match. This is similar to what can be observed in humans. Buró remarked, "Dogs can understand that words represent things... so they activate mental representations and connect the meaning of the word to the mental representation, not just to the context." Researchers plan to investigate whether this ability to understand word reference is unique to dogs or may also exist in other mammals.
