By Natalie Parletta

Dogs seem to have the ability – until now thought to be uniquely human – to spontaneously recognise words even when they are spoken by unfamiliar people with different voices, accents and pronunciation.

They also can recognise that someone is unfamiliar by the sound of their voice alone, according to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters.

A team of British and French researchers led by Holly Root-Gutteridge from the University of Sussex made this discovery while investigating how our all-important ability to perceive speech evolved.

“If you can’t recognise a word spoken by different people,” Root-Gutteridge says, “you can’t really use speech.”

Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) present ready and willing volunteers to test how the ability to “normalise” speech across different speakers evolved because they are so responsive to human communication.

“They pay attention to it and show it by moving their heads and ears, or they gaze at the source, and they have lots of reasons to care about it,” says Root-Gutteridge.

In two experiments, the researchers played recordings of single syllable words produced by 13 men and 14 women...

more: https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/clever-canines-recognise-words-regardless-of-who-s-speaking