Dogs may appear to have selective hearing when it comes to orders but research suggests they are paying attention to human chitchat.
Researchers, who arranged for headphone-wearing dogs to listen to excerpts (节录) from the novel The Little Prince, revealed their brains can tell the differences between speech and non-speech when listening to human voices, and show different responses to speech in an unfamiliar language.
The research involved 18 dogs of various ages and breeds (品种) that were trained to lie in an MRI scanner with headphones on. They were then played recordings either of humans reading excerpts from The Little Prince or those same recordings cut up into small pieces and put back together in a different order so it sounded unnatural.
The results, published in the journal Neuro Image, revealed the dogs’ brains showed a different activity pattern in the primary auditory cortex (听觉皮层) for speech compared with non-speech, with the findings similar regardless of whether the language used—Hungarian or Spanish—was familiar. Curiously, the longer the dogs’ heads were, the better their brains could distinguish speech from non-speech.
The team also found the activity pattern was stronger for non-speech. In humans, we typically see stronger response to speech.
The research also revealed familiar and unfamiliar languages gave rise to different responses in the secondary auditory cortex—but only for speech. That was important, said Andics, senior author of the study at Loránd University in Hungary, as it suggested the ability to distinguish between languages was not simply down to the speakers being different.
Instead, the team said, the differences seen between languages for speech are probably down to exposure to the familiar language and a sensitivity to language-specific regularities.
“This is also supported by the observation that older dogs show the stronger discrimination between the two languages,” said Andics.
8. What’s the function of Paragraph 1?
A.To make a comparison. | B.To introduce the subject. |
C.To provide the background. | D.To propose a definition. |
9. What’s Paragraph 3 mainly about?
A.The process of the research. | B.The purpose of the research. |
C.The subject of the research. | D.The outcome of the research. |
10. On what basis did the researchers get their findings?
A.How old and what breeds the dogs are. |
B.How many times the dogs read the book. |
C.How dogs’ brains react to different speeches. |
D.How dogs get familiar with the languages used. |
11. Why could older dogs have stronger discrimination?
A.They have met more different speakers. |
B.They have been exposed to stricter training. |
C.They possess a better sense of commitment. |
D.They share the speakers’ environment longer. |