No matter what the language, people speak at a rate of about four syllables per second. Dogs, on the other hand, bark and woof at the rate of two vocalizations per second. Interestingly, when talking to dogs, we slow our speech to about three syllables per second to accommodate their processing speed—no matter what language we talk to them in.
Those were the findings of researchers at Switzerland’s University of Geneva, who studied a couple of dozen people talking to other people in five different languages and also talking to dogs in those same languages—English, French, Italian, Japanese, and Vietnamese. It turns out, based on EEGs that measured brain responses to others talking, people are focused on relatively fast theta rhythms when deciphering speech, while dogs are attuned to slower delta rhythms.
What’s not known is what exactly in our own biology makes us speak more slowly when talking to dogs, who are able to make sense of much of what we say to them even though they can’t say it back. That is, there’s still a lot to be learned about the evolution of the incredible bond between us and our canine friends.
