Dogs can better understand you if you slow down your speech, study finds

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Louise Thomas

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If you want your dog to understand what you are saying, try speaking a little bit slower.

New research suggests dogs’ comprehension of human speech relies on a slower tempo.

Despite not being able to produce human sounds, man’s best friend is capable of responding to human speech.

When people talk slowly, it matches their pets’ receptive abilities, allowing the dogs to better understand commands, researchers say.

Writing in the Plos Biology journal, the authors said: “Comparative exploration of neural and behavioural responses to speech reveals that comprehension in dogs relies on a slower speech rhythm tracking  than humans’, even though dogs are equally sensitive to speech content and prosody.”

They hypothesise that people may adjust their speech rate “as means to improve communication efficacy”.

Eloise Deaux, of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and colleagues analysed the vocal sounds of 30 dogs, and the sounds of 27 humans across five languages speaking to other people, and 22 humans across those languages speaking to dogs.

The scientists also examined brain responses to speech in humans and dogs.

They found that people are much faster talkers than dogs, with a speech rate of about four syllables per second, whereas dogs bark, growl, woof and whine at a rate of about two vocalisations per second.

The study found that, when talking to dogs, people slowed their speech to around three syllables per second.

Analysis of brain signals showed that dogs’ neural responses to speech are focused on slower brain waves, while human responses to speech are focused on faster rhythms.

The authors suggest that humans and dogs have different vocal processing systems, and that slowing down our speech when speaking to pets may ultimately help us better connect with them.