Dogs understand words as we do / Curr. Biol., Mar. 22, 2024 (Vol. 34, Issue 8)

Researchers at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary, find a human N400-like semantic mismatch effect in dogs’ ERPs to objects primed with matching or mismatching object words, revealing that object words can evoke mental representations of the referred objects in dogs. The referential understanding of object words is thus not a distinctive feature of the human language faculty.
Check out the paper at www.cell.com/cu....
M. Boros, L. Magyari, B. Morvai, R. Hernández-Pérez, S. Dror, and A. Andics (2024). Neural evidence for referential understanding of object words in dogs. Curr. Biol. 34.
And read more great research at www.cell.com/cu....

[@PartnerYourDog]

When presented with the wrong toy, did all of the dogs respond with stress signals (look away, tongue flick) as Joel did? I noticed the second dog did it at 1:26. It looked as if there might have been 2 trials with it, and the wrong toy was presented at that timestamp. Does the study mention this?

[@stephaneichenlaub]

I had a Dachshound who could understand and act on the words „links“ (left) and „rechts“ (right). We often went on tours through forest and fields. He ran, I slowly rode my bicycle. When he ran ahead before crossings I yelled at him: „Blacky, links!“ or „Blacky, rechts!“ - and usually he took the correct turn.