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Dogs' Brains Have Human-like "Voice Area"
sciencehabit writes "When you hear a friend's voice, you immediately picture her, even if you can't see her. And from the tone of her speech, you quickly gauge if she's happy or sad. You can do all of this because your human brain has a 'voice area.' Now, scientists using brain scanners and a crew of eager dogs have discovered that dog brains, too, have dedicated voice areas. The finding helps explain how canines can be so attuned to their owners' feelings."
Of course this area of the brain is missing in CEO's and political pundits..
I love all these studies that constantly come out showing that dogs are, well, loving, loyal, and built to hang around humans. Of COURSE they are. Dogs are domesticated, and like, are the best thing ever.
I would like to see more studies about how flexible these relatively large changes are, and how fast they can occur. We all know about the Russion project to make "dogs out of foxes" by domesticating foxes by choosing them based on friendliness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Do these little foxes have a section where they are mirroring the dogs? In other words, is this morphological change something that happens when an animal is domesticated into a pet, or are dogs just special because awwwww doggie?
Here is an example conversation:
Me: "What's on top of the house?"
Dog: "Roof!"
Me: "Who's the most famous baseball player?"
Dog: "Ruth!"
Me: "How does sand-paper feel?"
Dog: "Rough!"
3 out 3!
Table-ized A.I.
because they learn to mimic our facial expressions with fair accuracy.
Cats have been reported to be developing smaller brains since their domestication. Whatever it takes, I guess.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
so human
much voice like
wow
many feelings
very dedicated
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
If you've been around dogs much you can get a pretty good idea of their emotional state by their vocalizations. Not just the obvious growl or excited yipping, even straight barks have an inflection that tells you a lot.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that an animal which can vocalize emotion has a brain that can pick it up as well
But when they do bark at real trouble, there's a different sound in it.
The inflection angle goes both ways.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
My dogs "fart area" of the brain is very similar to a humans.
We've had carefully selected Golden Retrievers in our extended family for 30 years. For a point of reference this is a breed that's ranked #5 in intelligence compared to all breeds. Our family dog is amazingly human-like, even after carefully trying not to anthropomorphize him and our feelings about him.
He has a vocabulary of about 50 words. He understands short sentences, or at least enough words in them to understand what we mean. "Go upstairs and find your ball", "Hey I put food in your bowl", "Go see your mom" (since he's an adopted pet we're his adoptive parents, dogs are not things to own). He responds like a human. He can practically tell you a whole story with his facial expressions. He can roll his eyes sort of by looking at the ceiling and making a face when he thinks we're being ridiculous, and it's different than a similar face when he thinks we're being obtuse. He even has a favorite movie, Snow Dogs. He pays close attention to the dogs and has done the eyeroll to the ceiling thing when the humans start making out. He cracks us up daily.
We've all seen a dog lift an eyebrow and tilt their head to say "what the heck are you talking about?" Tip of the iceberg. When you have a really smart one for a decade it's like having a furry kid in the family. A very well behaved one, but there you go.
I sort of feel sorry for people who never get to be "dog people", call a dog "it" and think the rest of us are crazy and just anthropomorphizing our pet. Most of us "dog people" don't need these studies to tell us anything. But I'm still glad they're studying.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
"When you hear a friend's voice, you immediately picture her ..."
Nope. I do not. I might visualize an abstract, inky blob, but I most certainly do not picture the person.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
It's amusing because it does make them look a bit special, but it is in itself a sign of their intelligence. It's believed that dogs tilt their heads because the muzzle obscures part of their vision and by doing so it allows them to better see your facial expressions when looking at you - in particular your mouth.
The fact you're asking a question and they do this shows that they're aware that you're asking something of them and they're trying to interpret what you're asking of them, this is one of the reasons dogs are deemed to be particularly intelligent because they can read meaning in your voice and do look for other cues as to what you're asking of them.
My dog responds to this and I don't quite understand how. If I say that to him and the ball is around, he will go after it and immediately want to play. Even if the ball is put away or not visible (we cycle toy free availability to maintain interest), he will search for it.
But I haven't done often enough or with enough treats to make it a reinforced behavior like "sit", "down" or "wait". I can only guess I've used the word "ball" a lot when playing with him and the ball and he's come to associate that word (or the phonetic sound) with the ball.