Our pets, of course, are aware of our presence. Is it possible for them to do so when there are no visual or olfactory cues to assist them?
Is there anything about the voice that aids in this process?
Discovering game
A team of researchers from Hungary’s Department of Ethology asked 28 dog owners and their pets to participate in a lab game of hide-and-seek to discover.
One of two hiding locations had to be found by the dogs while a stranger was lurking behind the other.
An anonymous voice from one of the hiding places read out the recipes, while an owner’s voice was played from the other hiding spot.
Confusing Voices
In order to locate their owners, the dogs had to choose something out of a hat and go after it. The owner’s voice was coupled with the voices of many strangers . Some of whom were more similar to the owner’s voice than others.
Most of dogs were reunited with their owners. Smells were ruled out as a factor in this exercise .
Dogs still chose where the stranger was hiding even after the final two rounds of testing, indicating they weren’t relying on their noses.
The researchers also looked at the specifics of how the dogs were guided by the voices.
Ways to distinguish
“When it comes to distinguishing themselves from the rest of the world by their sound, people tend to rely on pitch, noise, and timbre (brightness and darkness).
Dogs may employ the same or distinct vocal qualities . If two individuals disagree on an issue that is important to dogs, making a decision should be easier, according to lead researcher Anna Gábor.
How confident the dogs were in their judgments was shown by how long they glanced at the owner’s voice while they waited for the sign to leave.
It was shown that dogs were better able to distinguish between their owner’s voice and a stranger’s voice . Although the two voices varied more in pitch and noise, but timbre and other sound qualities had no effect.
“Here, we see for the first time that dogs are able to distinguish their owner’s voice from that of others. It was found that dogs utilize some . But not all of the same speech qualities as humans to identify who is speaking .
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