When we know someone well, just by listening to their voice we can tell if they are okay or if something is wrong. This occurs because our brain has a “voice area” that analyzes vocal tone and sends us information about that person we estimate. According to a study by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and published in the journal Current Biology , a similar process occurs in dogs.
Can dogs get social information from human voices? This was the starting point of the experiment. To do this, the researchers recruited 22 human volunteers and trained 11 dogs to remain immobile in the brain functional magnetic resonance imaging machine to establish which areas of the brain are activated by sound stimuli in both dogs and humans.
Throughout the experiment, the researchers reproduced 200 sounds belonging to human voices, dogs and natural noises to identify which areas of the brain were stimulated in different situations. The results of the neuroimaging study show that dog brains also have voice areas and process voices in the same way that the human brain does .
This finding would help explain how canines can be so in tune with their owners’ feelings as it shows that there are areas of the brain responsible for picking up similar sound and voice between the two species. Hence, the success of the close bond that usually occurs between a dog and its owner is determined because canines are capable of capturing our emotions.
