Study finds dogs process human speech similarly to humans

A study published in the journal Science reveals that dogs process human speech in a manner similar to the human brain. Researchers from the Communication Neuroethology Laboratory in Budapest discovered that dogs possess the ability to segment words within continuous flows of speech, a capability previously believed to be unique to humans.

Using EEG electrodes on 20 humans and 20 companion dogs, scientists measured electrical brain activity while participants listened to uninterrupted speech patterns. The study tested three distinct sound patterns: consonant-based word skeletons, vowel-based patterns, and random syllable sequences. The results showed that both species exhibited increased brain activity when processing consonant-based speech patterns.

Cognitive neuroscientist Attila Andics, one of the study's authors, noted that rhythmic activity increased more for consonant patterns than for vowel or random patterns in both humans and dogs. These findings suggest that long-term coexistence with humans may have reshaped canine brain function, allowing animals to respond to the specific sound structures of the language they hear daily.