你的狗比你想象的知道的更多

你的狗比你想象的知道的更多

When we make a road trip to visit my parents, Brodie always comes along for the ride. My mom and dad talk to my crazy border collie mix both in Italian and heavily accented English. "Sit" becomes "sitta" and they often ask him to "givva me your paw."

當(dāng)我們自駕游去看望父母時，布羅迪總是陪在我們身邊。我爸媽用意大利語和帶有濃重口音的英語跟我那只瘋狂的博德牧羊犬說話。“坐”變成了“坐”，他們經(jīng)常讓它“把你的爪子給我”。

Researchers used to believe only humans could recognize the same vowel sounds spoken by different speakers. (Photo: ShotPrime Studio/Shutterstock)

Brodie looks at them intently and certainly appears to understand everything they say. It probably helps that they're bribing him with homemade bread, but a new study finds that dogs understand human language better than we thought. Researchers found that dogs can understand when someone new is talking or when they hear a different word. The results were published in the journal Biology Letters.

布羅迪專注地看著他們，顯然明白他們所說的一切。他們用自制的面包賄賂他，這可能有幫助，但一項(xiàng)新的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，狗比我們想象的更能理解人類的語言。研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，狗能聽懂別人說話或聽到不同的單詞。研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《生物學(xué)快報》雜志上。

For the study, researchers from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom filmed 70 dogs of different breeds while they sat next to their owners, according to Science. They played audio recordings of men and women who the dogs had never heard speak before, and they used words that sounded very similar such as "had," "hid" and "who'd."

據(jù)《科學(xué)》雜志報道，在這項(xiàng)研究中，英國蘇塞克斯大學(xué)的研究人員拍攝了70只不同品種的狗，它們坐在主人旁邊。他們播放了狗從未聽過的男人和女人說話的錄音，并使用聽起來非常相似的單詞，如“had”、“hid”和“who’d”。

The words were chosen because they didn't sound anything like common commands that the dogs were likely to have heard at home or during normal training.

之所以選擇這些詞，是因?yàn)樗鼈兟犉饋聿幌袷枪吩诩依锘蛘Ｓ?xùn)練時可能聽到的普通命令。

More than a human thing

不僅僅是人類的事情

After listening to the recordings just one time, 48 of the dogs reacted either when a different speaker said the same word or when the same speaker said a different word, New Scientist reports. The other dogs didn't respond in a noticeable way or were distracted.

據(jù)《新科學(xué)家》報道，在只聽了一次錄音后，其中48只狗在聽到不同的人說同一個詞或同一個人說不同的詞時做出了反應(yīng)。其他的狗沒有明顯的反應(yīng)，或者注意力分散。

Researchers looked for reactions like the dog's ears moving forward, changing eye contact or shifting toward the speaker whenever they heard a change in a word or a speaker, as shown in the video above. They also noted how long the dogs paid attention. When they kept hearing the same word repeated over and over, their attention dropped.

研究人員觀察了狗狗的反應(yīng)，比如每當(dāng)聽到一個單詞或說話者的變化時，狗狗的耳朵會向前移動、改變眼神接觸或轉(zhuǎn)向說話者，如上面的視頻所示。他們還記錄了狗注意的時間。當(dāng)他們反復(fù)聽到同一個詞時，他們的注意力就會下降。

"Until now, the spontaneous ability to recognize vowel sounds when spoken by different people was considered to be uniquely human," lead researcher Holly Root-Gutteridge told the Press Association. "This research shows that, despite previous assumptions, this spontaneous ability is not uniquely human and that dogs share this linguistic talent, suggesting that speech perception may not be as special to humans as we previously thought.”

首席研究員Holly Root-Gutteridge告訴英國報業(yè)協(xié)會:“直到現(xiàn)在，當(dāng)不同的人說不同的元音時，自發(fā)識別元音的能力被認(rèn)為是人類獨(dú)有的。”“這項(xiàng)研究表明，盡管之前有過假設(shè)，但這種自發(fā)的能力并不是人類獨(dú)有的，狗也有這種語言天賦，這表明語言感知對人類來說可能并不像我們之前認(rèn)為的那么特殊。”

Researchers think the ability might be due to domestication, as dogs who are the most attentive to humans are the ones most likely to be used for breeding.

研究人員認(rèn)為，這種能力可能源于馴化，因?yàn)樽铌P(guān)心人類的狗最有可能被用來繁殖。

"I was surprised by how well some of the dogs responded to unfamiliar voices," Root-Gutteridge told New Scientist. "It might mean that they comprehend more than we give them credit for."

Root-Gutteridge告訴《新科學(xué)家》雜志說:“我很驚訝一些狗對陌生聲音的反應(yīng)如此之好。”“這可能意味著他們理解的東西比我們認(rèn)為的要多。”