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Donald McCaig
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Dear Doggers,

 

The Hungarians are doing some of the most interesting stuff on dogs but, like Pavlov (who got a nobel for it, for chrissakes) this experiment merely makes scientifically respectable what any dog trainer already knows.

 

What is the sound of a hand applauding itself?

 

Donald McCaig

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The study you reference does a bit more than "makes scientifically respectable what any dog trainer already knows.". It suggests that dogs use the same (or similar) brain structure to recognize (voice) sounds as humans. Given the length of time since a common ancestor, it implies that the brain area involved must be shared by a very large number of species. That is of immense interest. Verifying "what any dog trainer already knows" was a rather insignificant part of their work -- mapping the brain area involved was their main purpose.

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The study you reference does a bit more than "makes scientifically respectable what any dog trainer already knows.". It suggests that dogs use the same (or similar) brain structure to recognize (voice) sounds as humans. Given the length of time since a common ancestor, it implies that the brain area involved must be shared by a very large number of species. That is of immense interest. Verifying "what any dog trainer already knows" was a rather insignificant part of their work -- mapping the brain area involved was their main purpose.

 

Good summary. Thank you for the link.

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So once again...the expert i.e. dogtrainer has to be confirmed by science for it to be real?

 

Yes, in this comment I am allowing for the folks that love to read and scientifically want to understand. That is fine. I just always really have to keep from laughing out loud. Save your money and put it towards more immediate concerns. Like genetics studies and such that will keep our animals living healthier.

 

Sorry, been a bad week.

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Maybe it's because I'm a scientist by training, but I find the study intellectually interesting, for the reasons stated by JLJ. If dogs understand us via brain structures similar to ours, then what other animals also have those brain structures (or similar) and could potentially understand voice?

 

J.

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I have the impression only dogs were scanned because it is possible and relatively easy to train them to lie still in an MRI. Try that with a cat.

Until recently, MRI studies in non-human subjects have been only possible using sedation. It is one of the impressive skills of these investigators that they have been able to train dogs to lie still in the MRI for up to 8 minutes. That's an incredibly long time considering how noisy and alien the inside of the machine must be. In addition the dogs were presented with stimuli such as human voices and dog sounds (barking, whining etc.).

 

[bTW: I have known some lazy cats who could remain immobile for long periods; no training required!]

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What "any" dog trainer knows really would be a matter up for legitimate debate. I have spoken with a good many who deny the fact that dogs even have brain chemistry, much less have any idea whatsoever that it might be relevant to understanding a dog's behavior and/or ability to learn!! :P

 

I enjoyed the article and I find this to be very interesting. While, of course, the findings aren't stunning new information, I still found the information, and particularly the drawings with the article, to be pretty cool.

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This study makes a lot of sense in a way of filling some gaps for me. Being a linguist, I of course dashed off to see what exactly they mapped. In the picture, the area is the right hemisphere - the hemisphere which for a long time was supposed have little input in language. After all the left - the linguistic hemisphere so to speak - has syntax semantics morphology and phonology, so what is left for the right? (it always always me of Esau's blessing)

 

But it is known now. that in human communication the right hemisphere is responsible for production and understanding of prosody (the melody of language, tone, etc), for body language, facial expressions, emotions (so also crying, voice emotionally charged). There are others too (like sequencing events, understanding metaphors, puns, irony, sarcasm), but these I listed are very much an aspect of communication we share with other mammals, so it it makes sense. it makes sense too in that everybody knows that dogs do not differentiate the sounds well, they rely on the overall shape and tone - and that's the right hemisphere too.

 

So it's not that the scientists are making the obvious statement, they are answering the question 'why' not 'what'

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Thank goodness some people do ask the question "Why?" on all sorts of subjects.

 

That's the way we discover that we didn't know as much as we thought we did.

 

Not all the answers will have an immediate practical application but that doesn't mean they won't be interesting.

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