Category: News

When you talk to your dog, does she ever tilt her head back and forth in the cutest possible way, looking like she’s trying to figure out what you’re telling her?

That may be just what she’s doing, according to a new study by the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex, published in the Nov. 26 issue of the journal Current Biology.

The researchers discovered that dogs process human speech in the same way as we humans process each other’s speech — by using different hemispheres of the brain.

“Humans mainly use the left hemisphere of their brain to process the verbal content of speech and the right hemisphere to process the characteristics of the voice — whether it’s familiar, male or female — and its emotional content,” doctoral candidate Victoria Ratcliffe (in the photo), who conducted the research with Dr. David Reby, said in a press release.

“Previous studies have shown that other mammals also have hemispheric biases when processing their own species’ vocalizations, but no one had ever looked at whether biases existed in domesticated animals in response to the different components of human speech.”

In the study, more than 250 dogs were tested to see how they responded to spoken commands. Participants included dogs from the the local RSPCA as well as dog walkers’ clients. Each dog heard human speech through speakers that were placed on their left and right sides. (The right ear sends information to the left side of the brain, and vice versa.)

The dogs were more likely to turn to the right when the speech they heard was meaningful (such as the command, “Come on then”), and also when voice features such as gender or intonation were reduced or removed.

However, if the speech they heard was in a foreign language or if the phonemes (sounds that distinguish one word from another) had been scrambled — for example, they heard “Thon om ken” instead of “Come on then” — the dogs were more likely to turn to the left.

“Although we cannot say to what extent they understand the complexity of the verbal content, our study does suggest that dogs pay attention to this information in human speech and that they perceive its content in a way that broadly parallels human perception,” Ratcliffe said.

Dr. Reby said the researchers would like to investigate whether wild animals also display similar left brain/right brain speech processing, or if it’s something unique to dogs, “because they have been selected to respond to human verbal commands during domestication.”

He said such a study “would advance our understanding of the evolution of speech perception in humans by revealing whether hemispheric specializations for processing its different communicative components are uniquely human or instead shared with other mammals.”

Photo via University of Sussex

Congratulations to Pen Farthing, who has been named CNN’s 2014 Hero of the Year.

A former Royal Marine sergeant, Farthing is the founder of Nowzad Dogs, a non-profit that reunites soldiers with the stray dogs and cats they cared for while serving in Afghanistan. The organization also built the first-ever official shelter for strays in that country.

“There is no stronger bond between man and dog than that formed during war,” Farthing said at the awards ceremony Tuesday.

After Farthing helped to break up a dog fight in Nowzad eight years ago, one of the dogs followed him back to his base. Farthing took the stray in and named him after the town. The two formed a close bond, which was almost broken the following year when Farthing’s tour of duty ended. He faced many challenges trying to transport Nowzad from Afghanistan to his home in England.

Farthing started Nowzad Dogs in 2007 to help smooth the process for other soldiers who wanted to provide forever homes for the strays they’d adopted. Nearly 700 happy reunions have taken place since then.

“Speaking from my own experience, I know that the dog I looked after was my saving grace from the stress of conflict,” Farthing said. “And because of that initial bond, the work goes on: reuniting soldiers with their companions, tackling rabies and training veterinarians in Kabul.”

CNN Heroes honors “everyday people making extraordinary efforts to change the world,” according to the network. The top 10 heroes are nominated by viewers, who also vote for the Hero of the Year winner. Each of the finalists receives $25,000 for their cause. As the Hero of the Year, Farthing will be awarded an additional $100,000 for Nowzad Dogs.

“I would like to thank everybody for their support,” Farthing said at the ceremony. “We’re making a difference for the Afghan people, the soldiers, and one dog and cat at a time.”

“CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute” will air on CNN Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. ET.

Photos via Facebook

Here in Los Angeles, at least, it seems you can regularly find at least one newspaper story that involves a dog.

Based on a new study, this is not too surprising.

Published last month in the journal PS: Political Science & Politics, “What’s a Dog Worth” takes a look at the “dog effect” in news coverage decisions by national and local newspapers.

“Events most likely to be reported are those that are both important and can capture the audience’s interest,” wrote the study’s authors, Matthew D. Atkinson of UCLA, and Maria Deam and Joseph E. Uscinski of the University of Miami. “In turn, the public is most likely to become aware of important news when some aspect of the story piques their interest.

“We suggest an efficacious means of drawing public attention to important news stories: dogs.”

In the study, the authors went through stories published in the New York Times’ national section since 2000, selecting 18 stories that involved dogs and 334 that did not. Then they checked 10 other local and national newspapers to see which of these stories were published the following day.

“In short: A front-page story in the New York Times was picked up by other papers at 3.1 times the rate of a story from the last page of the national news section,” wrote Philip Bump in his Wonkblog story about the study for the Washington Post. “A story that involved a dog that appeared on the last page of the section appeared in other newspapers at 2.6 times the rate of a non-dog story with the same placement.”

The authors of the study noted that “having a canine subject in a national news event produced coverage of the story that was 80 percent as large as the effect of the difference between being New York Times front-page and back-page worthy.”

Their conclusion? “Dogs are an important factor in news decisions.”

As Bump wrote, “Be honest: You clicked the link to this story because it mentions dogs. Dogs are terrific, speaking both objectively and with the full editorial weight of the Washington Post at my back. That excellence lead to affection; that affection to curiosity. The curiosity that drove your click, as it turns out, is not unique to you. It is shared by editorial teams at newspapers.”

Photo credit: Jon Seidman