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<\/div>Dogs can learn the names of objects<\/p>\n
Gorodenkoff\/Shutterstock\u200b<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Dogs<\/a> seem to understand that words represent specific objects, recordings of their brain activity suggest.<\/p>\n Although some dogs can fetch a wide range of different objects on command,<\/a> few do well on such tests in the lab. In addition, it is unclear if dogs understand words as object names, rather than instructions.<\/p>\n To explore this question, Marianna Boros<\/a> at E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University in Budapest, Hungary, and her colleagues tested 18 dogs from a wide range of breeds, including Border collies, toy poodles and Labrador retrievers.<\/p>\n Their owners chose five objects familiar to each dog. In the test, they said the name of an object and then showed the dog either the named object or a different object.<\/p>\n Each dog\u2019s brainwaves were monitored via electroencephalography (EEG) to see whether there was a difference in activity when the dog\u2019s owner said \u201cball\u201d, but showed a stick, for example, compared with when the word and object were the same.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea was that if dogs understand the meaning of the words, their brain responses will differ between the presentation of matching and mismatching objects,\u201d says Boros.<\/p>\n The researchers found that the EEG signals were different when the objects didn\u2019t match and the effect was stronger for words that individual dogs knew well. This is similar to results seen in humans and suggests that dogs know that certain words represent certain objects.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe most important realisation of this study is not only that non-humans are capable of understanding words referentially, but this capacity seems to be generally present in dogs as well,\u201d says Boros. \u201cThis study demonstrates that dogs may understand more than they show.\u201d<\/p>\n No breed appeared to show a greater language ability than any other, says Boros.<\/p>\n