Why you should speak slowly to your dog to make yourself understood ?

Les chiens ne prêtent pas uniquement attention à la musicalité de nos propos, mais aussi à leur sens. Tom Merton/Getty Images

A study published in the journal PLOS Biology claims that we subconsciously change our speech rate when we talk to one of these adorable balls of fur.

“But he's a nice doggie, that's!” You've probably already spoken to a dog this way. No shame in that, it's completely normal. A study published in the journal PLOS Biology claims that we unconsciously change our speech rate when we talk to one of these adorable balls of fur.

A Franco-Swiss research team investigated how humans and dogs communicate by conducting an experiment involving 27 volunteers and 30 canines. For the purposes of their study, the researchers analyzed the participants' brain responses when they spoke to other humans and dogs – in five different languages. At the same time, they studied the vocalizations produced by dogs to understand how they communicate with their peers, but also with other species.

Four syllables per second

It turns out that humans speak much faster than dogs. We utter an average of four syllables per second, while our four-legged companions emit two vocalizations per second. However, academics have noticed that when a human speaks to a dog, they emit three syllables per second. In other words, they slow down their speech rate to approximate that of the canine.

Dogs seem to be very receptive to this change in pace. Their brains react strongly to delta waves, the slow, high-amplitude waves that we humans emit when we are deeply asleep. “[H]umans who talk to their dogs adopt a different speaking rhythm than they use when speaking to an adult, and which better corresponds to the delta oscillation capacity of the dog's neurons”, the researchers explain in their study.

To make yourself understood by dogs, it is therefore better to speak to them slowly. But don't say anything and everything in a slow voice either. The researchers point out that dogs pay attention not only to the musicality of our words, but also to their meaning. In a study published in the journal Current Biology, Hungarian scientists argue that dogs know that certain words refer to specific objects. This ability is shared by all dogs, and not just by a few rare "super dogs" like Rico, a German border collie capable of recognizing 250 toys whose names are pronounced. This news should delight dog owners.