It is well known that babies need to be talked to because it strengthens the bond between parent and child, and a recent study shows that such an approach is also good when it comes to dogs that many owners often address as children.
If you have a dog, it is very likely that you address him in a very emotional tone with sentences like "who is a good dog?", which often amuses those around you, writes the Medicalnews Today (MTS) portal.
Owners do this instinctively because they feel close to their pets, but does it have any effect on the dog, asked scientists Alex Benjamin and Katie Slocombe from the University of York in Great Britain and conducted a study and claim that it does.
"It is thought that a particular register, the tone in which we speak to children, helps with speech acquisition and improves the way a child bonds with an adult," explains Slocombe.
"Such a form of speech has similarities to the way people address pet dogs," explains Slokombe, adding that such affective, "rhythmic speech is widespread in human interaction with dogs in Western culture."
With the study, the authors wanted to find out if such speech has a 'bonding' effect on dogs, as it does with children.
Their findings were published in the journal Animal Cognition.
For the study, scientists conducted two human-dog communication experiments. In the first, they tested direct speech addressing an adult, and in the second, speech addressing a dog. That second speech was tailored to the needs of the dogs, both by the choice of terms, for example "Good dog" or "Let's go for a walk?", as well as the speech with emphasis and intonation.
Adult speech consisted of direct sentences such as "I was at the cinema last night" spoken in a "normal" tone. The dog's attention was measured when addressing one or the other type of speech, and then the dogs had to choose which of the two speakers they wanted to associate with.
The first experiment showed that dogs strongly chose people who spoke to them in canine speech.
However, scientists warn, it is of course possible that this affection stems from the emotional tone with which the speakers addressed the dogs, and that the content had nothing to do with their selection, reports Nezavisne.
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