Scientists discover way to say 'I love you' to dogs in way they understand
Anyone who has ever owned a dog, or simply just adores pooches will know the overwhelming temptation to speak to them in a silly voice. You know the one: slightly high-pitched cooing, an exaggerated drawl, telling them that they are the goodest girl or boy in the world, the most gorgeous doggo, and that you just ‘wuv’ them so, so much.
It’s also easy for those outside this extraordinary relationship to roll their eyes at what scientists call ‘exaggerated prosody’, and moan that speaking to a dog like a baby does absolutely nothing, however, new research suggests this isn’t the case and canine brains are actually sensitive to this tone.
Researchers from the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest, Hungary, have been exploring dog behaviour for years. The scientists played recorded speech from 12 men and 12 women to dogs to discover if they reacted differently to any of the voices. The recordings featured how a man-to-adult sounded, man-to-dog, woman-to-infant, and so on.
In a YouTube video explaining the experiment, the scientists who performed this study included a clip of actress Jennifer Aniston using the ‘baby voice’ on both an infant and a dog. And their findings show that dog brains respond in the same positive ways to exaggerated prosody as human babies.
Speaking to Salon website, Dr. Anna Gábor, a study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at the Neuroethology of Communication Lab at Eötvös Loránd University's Department of Ethology, revealed: “This study provides the first neural evidence for dogs' heightened responsiveness for speech with exaggerated prosody (specifically to dog-and infant-directed speech) as compared to adult-directed speech, especially when spoken by women.”
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Dr. Gábor went on to say that previous research had shown dogs exhibit a behavioral preference for dog-directed speech. However, it was previously unknown not only do their brains also react more to this ‘baby’ style but that they have a preference for women's dog- and infant-directed speech specifically.
She added: “Interestingly, the sensitivity of dog brains to dog-and infant-directed speech was driven by voice pitch and its variations. This suggests that the higher and more intensely modulated voice pitch often used by women may be more effective when communicating with dogs.”
Dr. Gábor also noted that the results cannot be explained by either ancient responsiveness to conspecific signals. When babies are in their mother’s stomach they hear their voices, they react to them but this is obviously not the case for dogs.
Their research also discovered that voice tone patterns characterising women's dog-directed speech are not typically used in dog-dog communication, meaning the results could then suggest that dogs’ brains have rewired for this preference during their domestication evolution.
So there you have it. If you see a dog and get the chance to say hello, feel free to use your best cute baby voice to tell them how great they are. Research proves they love it.
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