Dogs In Combat
In dogs and humans, images show hearing a voice activates similar areas of the brain. The brains of dogs are more tuned to their own species. (I’ll bet experience can change that. If a person spends a lot of time around dogs, for example, they will fine-tune their doggy perception skills. Dogs surely do the same.)
An interesting difference, noted in the study, is that in dogs, 48 percent of all sound-sensitive brain regions respond more strongly to sounds other than voices. That’s in contrast to humans, in which only 3 percent of sound-sensitive brain regions show greater response to non-vocal sounds.
We then pay more attention to people talking than to, say, the sound of a squirrel chattering outside. Dogs still retain more of their wild ways, so the latter would be just as important to them.
The scientists say the study represents just the first step toward understanding how dogs are so good at figuring out the feelings of their humans.
“This method offers a totally new way of investigating neural processing in dogs,” Andics concluded. “At last we begin to understand how our best friend is looking at us and navigating in our social environment.”