Dogs can understand that certain words refer to specific objects, according to a recent study, suggesting that they may understand words in a similar way to humans. It offers the first evidence of brain activity for this comprehension in a non-human animal, researchers said, though the study’s conclusion has faced scrutiny from other experts in the field. It has long been known that dogs can learn commands like “sit,” “stay,” or “fetch” and can respond to these words with learned behaviors, often with the help of a treat or two, but untangling their understanding of nouns has proven more difficult. To understand dogs’ language skills, Lilla Magyari, an associate professor at Stavanger University in Norway and researcher at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary, and Marianna Boros, a postdoctoral researcher at Eötvös Loránd University, were inspired by studies investigating the comprehension of infants before they can speak. They decided to mimic…
