
-
Akie Iwai leads, Canadian teen Deng in hunt at LPGA Canadian Open
-
Chile, Argentina football fans trade blame over stadium violence
-
Palestinian camps in Lebanon begin disarming
-
Five dead as 'thunderous' bomb attack hits Colombian city
-
Henley leads PGA Tour Championship with Scheffler in pursuit
-
US Supreme Court allows cuts in NIH diversity research grants
-
Why fan violence still sullies Latin American football
-
Lil Nas X arrested after nearly naked nighttime stroll in LA
-
Texas, California race to redraw electoral maps ahead of US midterms
-
US captain Zackary wants Eagles to soar against England in Women's Rugby World Cup opener
-
Palace's Eze on verge of Arsenal move as he misses European tie
-
Google to provide Gemini AI tools to US government
-
Canada measles cases pass 4,500, highest count in Americas
-
'Underdog' Jefferson-Wooden shrugs off Tokyo worlds pressure
-
England's Jones relishing 'special occasion' at Women's Rugby World Cup after tragic year
-
Alcaraz, Djokovic on US Open collision course
-
US singer signs on for Russia's answer to Eurovision
-
Hundred-plus detained after fans 'lynched' during South America cup tie
-
Trump hails 'total victory' as US court quashes $464 mn civil penalty
-
Slot says Liverpool will only sign right player at right price amid Isak row
-
Walmart expects better sales, earnings as shoppers squeezed by tariffs
-
Malnourished Gaza children facing death without aid, says UN
-
Autopsy rules out 'trauma' in Frenchman livestream death
-
Liverpool's Frimpong out for several weeks with hamstring injury
-
Leverkusen rebuild continues with Bade and Echeverri signings
-
Ghana singer Shatta Wale held in US fraud probe over Lamborghini purchase
-
Wales skipper Callender passed fit for Women's Rugby World Cup opener against Scotland
-
Only goal is to win, says ever-competitive veteran Fraser-Pryce
-
Maresca adamant Fofana 'very happy' at Chelsea
-
Record EU wildfires burnt more than 1 mn hectares in 2025: AFP analysis
-
Hurricane Erin brings coastal flooding to N. Carolina, Virginia
-
EU gets 15% US tariff for cars, fails to secure wine reprieve
-
Russian fuel prices surge after Ukraine hits refineries
-
Maguire feels it will be 'silly' to leave Man Utd now
-
Ukrainian suspect arrested in Italy over Nord Stream blasts
-
England include ex-skipper Knight in Women's World Cup squad as Cross misses out
-
Walmart lifts outlook for sales, earnings despite tariffs
-
UK sees record asylum claims as row brews over housing
-
Swiss international Okafor move to Leeds heralds new EPL record
-
Microsoft re-joins handheld gaming fight against Nintendo's Switch
-
McReight to captain Wallabies against Springboks
-
Taiwanese boxer Lin agrees to gender test for world championships
-
Stocks slip as investors await key Fed speech
-
Hong Kong mogul Jimmy Lai's 'punditry' not criminal: lawyer
-
Bournemouth sign 'proven winner' Adli from Leverkusen
-
Israel pounds Gaza City as military takes first steps in offensive
-
First security guarantees, then Putin summit, Zelensky says
-
Shilton congratulates Brazilian goalkeeper Fabio on breaking record
-
Israel pounds Gaza City after offensive gets green light
-
Fraser-Pryce seeks Brussels boost ahead of Tokyo worlds

'Good boy!' Dogs do understand us, says new study
Whether dogs truly understand the words we say -- as opposed to things like tone and context clues -- is a question that has long perplexed owners, and so far science hasn't been able to deliver clear answers.
But a new brain wave study published Friday in Current Biology suggests that hearing the names of their favorite toys actually activates dogs' memories of the objects they are associated with.
"It is not so self-evident that dogs would know what a 'ball' is," co-author Lilla Magyari of the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, told AFP, using an easy example to explain the motivation behind the research.
With a couple of famous exceptions, dogs have fared poorly on lab tests requiring them to fetch objects after hearing their names, and many experts have argued it isn't so much what we say but rather how and when we say things that pique our pooches' interest.
Yelling "Go get the stick!" and having a dog successfully bring the object back doesn't conclusively prove they know what the word "stick" means.
Even scientists who concede that dogs do pay attention to our speech have said that, rather than really understanding what words actually stand for -- a uniquely human trait -- they are reacting to particular sounds with a learned behavior.
- Brain waves -
In the new paper, Magyari and colleagues applied a non-invasive brain imaging technique to 18 dogs brought to their lab in Budapest.
The test involved taping electrodes to the dogs' heads to monitor their brain activity. Their owners said words for toys they were most familiar with -- for example "Kun-kun, look, the ball!" -- and then showed them either the matching object or a mismatched object.
After analyzing the recordings, the team found different brain patterns when dogs were shown matching versus mismatched objects.
This experimental setup has been used for decades in humans, including babies, and is accepted as evidence of "semantic processing," or understanding meaning.
The test also had the benefit of not requiring the dogs to fetch something in order to prove their knowledge.
"We found the effect in 14 dogs, which shows the effect that we see on a group level is not only driven by a few exceptional dogs," co-author Marianna Boros told AFP.
- Case closed? -
Holly Root-Gutteridge, a dog behavior scientist at the University of Lincoln in England, who wasn't involved in the research, told AFP the ability to fetch specific toys by name had previously been deemed a "genius" quality.
She noted the famous border collies Chaser, who had the largest tested memory of any non-human animal, and Rico, who was the first dog found in tests to retrieve toys by their names.
But Root-Gutteridge said the new study "shows that a whole range of dogs are learning the names of the objects in terms of brain response even if they don't demonstrate it behaviorally," adding it was, "another knock for humanity's special and distinct qualities."
The paper "provides further evidence that dogs might understand human vocalizations much better than we usually give them credit for," added Federico Rossano, a cognitive scientist at UC San Diego.
But not all experts were equally enthusiastic.
Clive Wynne, a canine behaviorist at Arizona State University, told AFP he was "split" on the findings.
"I think the paper falls down when it wants to make the big picture claim that they have demonstrated what they call 'semantic understanding,'" he said, though he praised the "ingenious" experimental setup as a new way to test the full extent of dogs "functional vocabulary."
For example, Wynne said, he needs to spell out the word "w-a-l-k" when he's in front of his dog -- lest his pet get excited for an outing there and then -- but he doesn't need to take the same precautions in front of his wife, whose understanding of the word goes beyond simple association.
"Would Pavlov be surprised by these results?" asked Wynne, referencing the famous Russian scientist who showed dogs could be conditioned to salivate when they heard a bell signaling meal time. "I do not think he would be."
L.Meier--VB