If you’ve ever lived with dogs you’ll be in no doubt that their barks and growls differ according to context. Now scientists have started measuring the differences in growling. They have also demonstrated that dogs can distinguish between types of growl, even when the context is changed:
Dog with Cow Femur. Photo by hynkle.
For the first part of the study, Pongracz and his colleagues recorded 20 adult dogs of various breeds growling during the following situations: when a threatening stranger approached, during a tug-of-war game and while guarding a large, meaty bone.
The scientists electronically analyzed the recorded sounds and found that play growls stand out from the other two types because they are, in part, shorter and higher pitched. The computer analysis didn’t show any major differences between the other two growls, but dogs picked out the specific meanings immediately during the second part of the study.
For this experiment, 41 adult pet dogs of various breeds were recruited … as the test subject dogs approached the bone, the researchers played back the previously recorded growls through a hidden speaker. The hungry canines only jumped when the bone-guarding growl was played, even though the threatening stranger-associated growl sounded just as menacing to human ears.
[Via : Dog Growls Contain Specific Information : Discovery News.]
