The ability we thought belonged only to humans – and was discovered in the brains of dogs

A new study published in Science reveals that dogs can parse continuous human speech and identify word boundaries, a skill previously thought unique to humans. In an experiment at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, dogs' brains focused on consonants to detect word patterns, similar to humans. Researchers plan similar experiments with wolves.

A surprising new study published in the journal Science reveals that dogs can break down a continuous stream of human speech into separate word units. This ability, previously thought unique to humans, was discovered in an experiment monitoring brain activity in 20 dogs and 20 humans at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. Researchers played subjects a continuous stream of invented, meaningless words with no pauses between them. The results showed that dogs' brains focused on consonants (like B, D, T) to identify word boundaries, while ignoring the stronger sounds of vowels. This preference is identical to that of humans and has never been observed in any other animal, not even apes. The researchers emphasize that this does not mean dogs understand the deep meaning of words, but rather that their brains can crack the rhythm and pattern of language. It was also found that the ability does not depend on the age at which the dog came to a human home – even dogs adopted later in life showed the same ability. Researchers now plan to conduct similar experiments with wolves to test whether this is an innate mechanism or a skill that developed in dogs over thousands of years living alongside humans.