Friday, November 28, 2014
Morer than just blah blah Gingerer
From Tech Times:
Dogs respond to human speech in much the same way we do, study suggests. Their brains can respond simultaneously to bother the content and emotional component of speech, researchers say.Betterer questioner: Do journalisters understander humaner speecher? Seriously, the study was an elegant experiment:
Ratcliffe and Reby had dogs listen to human speech from two speakers placed on either side of the animal. The speech either had meaning to the dog (the very British command, "Come on then") or no meaning. The quality of the speech was also manipulated: Sometimes it was stripped of the trappings of the human voice, to emphasize the meaning of the words; sometimes the emotional tone was exaggerated. The researchers found that when they broadcast "come on then" with the meaning emphasized, the dogs typically turned their heads to the right-side speaker. ... indicates they were processing the words with a bias toward the left hemisphere of the brain, [the language center]. When the emotional tone of the speech was exaggerated, the dogs turned to the left ... [the music and emotion center].The finding itself is old knowledge. A smart dog understands a number of words and phrases that have importance to the dog, regardless of how you say the words. The hemispheric division is new knowledge. Up till now it was assumed that Wernicke's Area and Broca's Area were exclusively human or at most exclusive to anthropoid primates. ¶ 5:50 PM
