New study proves your dog can understand you when you talk

(Image credit: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

last updated 30 August 2016

Man's best friend actually knows what man is saying, according to a new study out of Hungary on how dogs react to language.

By training 13 family dogs to sit still in an fMRI scanner, the authors of the study discovered that by saying positive words in an excited manner, two different regions of the dog's brain lit up — the left hemisphere, which is connected to the meaning of words, and the right hemisphere, which is connected to how words are emotionally said. The same regions are connected to meaning and intonation in human brains, too.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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