Dog and human brains process vocal emotions alike

What is it about?

The first study ever to compare brain function between humans and any non-primate animal showed that dogs have dedicated voice areas in their brains just as people do, and that the two species use similar brain mechanisms to process emotional information <a href="http://youtu.be/a_zsmUI_DbE" target="_blank">(video)</a>.

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Why is it important?

Our results suggest common functions in dog and human voice processing. We presented evidence that voice areas preferring conspecific vocalizations exist not only in primates, but also in dogs, and that, as in nonhuman primates and humans, the dog voice areas involve bilateral TP regions. This evidence opens up the possibility that voice areas may have a longer evolutionary history than previously proposed, dating back to the common ancestor of dogs and humans some 100 million years ago. We also identified similarly located regions sensitive to emotional valence in vocalizations in both species and showed that this valence sensitivity involves keeping track of basic acoustic cues that mediate vocal emotions. This may be the first direct evidence suggesting that voice processing in mammalian listeners corresponds to the structural-functional organization of vocalizations and forms the basis for using key acoustic features for cross-specific call recognition.