Humans slow down their speech when talking to dogs.
Humans slow their speech down when talking to dogs
A study shows that people have adopted "dog-directed speech" because slower utterances are more likely to be registered by pooches.
Researchers found that humans make between four and seven sounds a second during vocalisations, whereas canines only produce two on average.
The team also discovered that people tended to slow their speech when communicating with the animals - who were more likely to obey slower commands as their brainwaves took longer to process instructions.
Study author Eloise Deaux, from the University of Geneva, explained that the results show that dogs have taught humans to communicate at a pace they can understand.
She said: "Our dogs do process speech, but in a way that is constrained by their own, slower vocalisation capabilities.
"To foster good verbal communication with dogs, we should be mindful of using slow speech to match their ability to parse it."