Neural evidence for referential understanding of object words in dogs

Researchers: Marianna Boros, Lilla Magyari, Boglárka Morvai, Raúl Hernández-Pérez, Shany Dror, Attila Andics
Published: March 22, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.029

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Highlights

• Dogs’ object word understanding is probed with EEG in a semantic violation paradigm
• Mismatch between prime word and target object evoked a human N400-like ERP effect
• This is neural evidence for object word-elicited mental representations in non-humans
• Dogs’ object word understanding is thus, similarly to humans’, referential in nature

Summary

Using words to refer to objects in the environment is a core feature of the human language faculty. Referential understanding assumes the formation of mental representations of these words. Such understanding of object words has not yet been demonstrated as a general capacity in any non-human species, despite multiple behavior-based case reports. In human event-related potential (ERP) studies, object word knowledge is typically tested using the semantic violation paradigm, where words are presented either with their referent (match) or another object (mismatch). Such mismatch elicits an N400 effect, a well-established neural correlate of semantic processing. Reports of preverbal infant N400 evoked by semantic violations assert the use of this paradigm to probe mental representations of object words in nonverbal populations. Here, measuring dogs’ (Canis familiaris) ERPs to objects primed with matching or mismatching object words, we found a mismatch effect at a frontal electrode, with a latency (206–606 ms) comparable to the human N400. A greater difference for words that dogs knew better, according to owner reports, further supported a semantic interpretation of this effect. Semantic expectations emerged irrespective of vocabulary size, demonstrating the prevalence of referential understanding in dogs. These results provide the first neural evidence for object word knowledge in a non-human animal.

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