If you were to move to a new country with a different language and bring along the family dog, your pet would likely have a hard time understanding commands from the locals9 according to a new study looking at how dogs’ brains react to different languages.
The new study was conducted by lead author Laura Cuaya, a neurobiologist at Eotvos Lordnd University in Hungary, who recently moved from Mexico to Tokyo alongside her dog Kun-kun.
Cuaya and her team trained 18 dogs, including Kun-kun, to lie motionless in an MRI machine so the researchers could scan their brains. As the dogs were being scanned, the researchers played the dogs three different recordings: a Spanish reading from the famous children’s book The Little Prince; a Japanese reading from the same book; and a series of human noises that did not resemble speech at all. All of the dogs had been exposed to only one of the two languages, meaning one was familiar to them and the other was unfamiliar. MRI scans revealed that dogs’ brains can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar languages? making them the first-known, and so far only, non-human animals to be able to tell the difference between human languages.
During the experiments, researchers also found that older dogs showed more activity in the secondary auditory cortex of the brain, suggesting they were better at differentiating familiar and unfamiliar languages than younger dogs. “I think that the main reason that older dogs are better at differentiating languages is the amount of exposure to the language Cuaya said. “Older dogs have had more opportunities to listen to humans while they talk.”
What makes dogs unique is that they do not need to be trained to distinguish between human languages. “Their brains detected the difference naturally, perhaps due to the domestication process,” Cuaya said. “While it is possible that many species can distinguish between human languages 9 dogs are one of the few that are interested in hearing us.”
【小题1】What does the new study find?| A．Dogs may settle into a new environment easily. |
| B．Dogs can face language barriers in a foreign country. |
| C．Dogs are more sensitive to languages than other animals. |
| D．Dogs fail to understand their owners in a new environment. |
| A．Its background. | B．Its benefit. | C．Its process. | D．Its purpose. |
| A．Domestication helps dogs better live with humans. |
| B．Dogs are closely related to humans. |
| C．Humans should be more friendly to dogs. |
| D．Training plays an important role in raising dogs. |
| A．Dogs can bring surprising health benefits |
| B．Dogs are good translators in a new environment |
| C．Dogs that are often exposed to humans are more intelligent |
| D．Dogs can distinguish between familiar and unfamiliar human languages |
