this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
382 points (97.0% liked)

Science Memes

17695 readers
3131 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
all 28 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] JimSamtanko@lemm.ee 50 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Fun fact: Cows have regional accents.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 25 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] Maven@lemmy.zip 29 points 2 years ago (2 children)

For example, a crow from the south might say "yee-caw" instead of "caw-caw"

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

Can confirm.

[–] xenoclast@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

And wear tiny cowboy hats.

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] toynbee@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Username checks out.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Attila Andics leads the lab where the study took place and said researchers were looking for brain regions that showed a different activity pattern for one language versus the other.

"And we found a brain region — the secondary auditory cortex, which is a higher level processing region in the auditory hierarchy — which showed a different activity pattern for the familiar language and for the unfamiliar language," Andics said.

"This activity pattern difference to the two languages suggests that dogs' brain can differentiate between these two languages. In terms of brain imaging studies, this study is the very first one which showed that a non-human species brain can discriminate between languages."

- Is your dog bilingual? A new study suggests their brains can tell languages apart

A little more:

… Mallikarjun said it would be worth investigating whether dogs could differentiate between languages in behavioral studies, too. 

"Whether they would behaviorally show a difference between Spanish and Hungarian, or whether this is something more subtle ... because often with neural studies, you can find differences that don't play out in the behavior."

Now, the dogs in the Hungarian study were trained not to move during the sessions, so the scientists could focus on the brain images and not their physical reactions.

But Andics said you should be able to try a version of this test at home, too.

"Start talking to your dog in a language they have never heard," he said. "They will probably look surprised."

[–] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Yes that's human language, but what about dog language?

[–] h3mlocke@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago
[–] Opisek@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Oh they certainly do look weird at you when you talk in a different language, no doubts! But the meme asks if the dog would notice a different language of "barks" rather than human speech.

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fun fact: all dogs speak English, because Americans do not give a fuck about social customs.

German dogs are incredibly well-behaved. They're stringently trained and trusted to stay put when told, to the extent that owners routinely take them shopping, and leave them just inside the front door, where they will wait patiently and mind their own business.

Unless they hear someone speaking English. Then they get all wiggly and worry about getting caught, because they know Americans will give them scritches and tell them they're cute.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They ARE cute, and deserve to know!

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] mojo_raisin@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)
[–] redisdead@lemmy.world 6 points 2 years ago

It's actually 'ouaf'

[–] redbr64@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So that's funny, but you know what I seriously find to be very strange? How different the onomatopoeias for a dog's bark (well, any common animals sound) are in different languages. Here are the ones I know from experience, done kinda phonetically in English: American English: woof woof Brazilian Portuguese: ow ow (au au) Farsi: hop hop

[–] Turun@feddit.de 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

Yes, because they communicate with natural behavior (I'm blanking on the word here. It's behavior they were simply born with)

Language is learned, but you can still "understand" another human if they are angry, crying, or laughing, no matter where they are from.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 years ago

body language

[–] Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 2 years ago

Innate behavior

[–] match@pawb.social 3 points 2 years ago

"instinct"?

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

A lot of dog social skills and communication is learnt, rather than preprogrammed. I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of regional dialects immediately. There would be a lot of commonality, but plenty of room for mismatches remain.

[–] RedditRefugee69@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The answer is yes btw (except for trained commands)

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

I assume this is because their communication is based on posture, look and pheromones?
I was wondering if ducks would understand each other, with them having confirmed to have accents based on region