In a new study, Anna Balint, a canine neurologist at Eötvös Loránd University, used
Scientists attached electrodes to each headdogs to record their brain reactions. The researchers then played different sounds from humans and dogs. People on the audio tracks laughed, coughed, muttered, and dogs sniffled, barked, or puffed.
Each sound was classified as positiveor neutral, in terms of emotional coloring. After each noise, the dogs experienced changes in their brain waves for the first 250 to 650 milliseconds. In the human brain, differences in signals during this time period are associated with motivation and decision making.
So the authors came to the conclusion that the puppies triedunderstand who or what is making sounds and how to respond. The dogs' brains did not produce any signals for the first 250 milliseconds - this is the period of time during which humans typically process the nature of sound: pitch, tone.
Brain wave activity peaked inrange from 250 to 650 milliseconds. The waves were more electrically positive in response to human sounds and more electrically negative in response to sounds from other dogs. The head of the study emphasizes that positive and negative waves are characteristics for changes in electrical voltage in the brain. This has nothing to do with a dog's preference for hearing one sound over another, she noted.
But the difference in voltage between the waves was serious. Dogs' brains process the two types of sound differently, but exactly how is still unknown.
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