Dogs may not grasp grammar, but they seem to zero in on speech patterns the same way humans do. A new study in Science suggests canines have a “consonant bias”—they pay more attention to consonants than vowels when we’re talking to them. To figure this out, Hungarian researchers attached EEG monitors to 20 people and 20 pet dogs as both listened to streams of nonsense syllables with no pauses. Sometimes the “words” were built on repeating consonant patterns, sometimes on vowel patterns, and sometimes were totally random, reports New Scientist. In dogs, brain activity synced 42% more strongly to consonant-based word rhythms than to vowel-based ones, and 55% more than to random streams. Humans also showed a clear, though smaller, consonant edge.
This kind of “bias” was thought to be unique to humans and does not appear to be present in primates, a far closer match to us, notes Discover. The team argues that living around human speech has reshaped dogs’ brains to favor consonants, though they haven’t yet tested dogs raised without such exposure, per Phys.org. A possible takeaway for prospective dog owners: “The lesson here may be to give your dog a name with more consonants in it than one with more vowels,” says Nick Enfield of the University of Sydney, Australia.