[♪ INTRO] Your dog might seem like a bit of a goof, but research suggests they might be  capable of more tricks than you think.

A new study from researchers in Hungary  published in the journal NeuroImage found that dogs appear to be able to  distinguish new and familiar languages. Not only is that a pretty cool trick for  Fido, these findings are the first evidence that a non-human brain can actually  differentiate between two languages.

The lead scientist behind this study, Dr.  Laura Cuaya, previously lived in Mexico, but had moved to Hungary with her pooch,  Kun-kun, to continue her research. She wanted to know if Kun-kun had  any clue that the language around him had changed, or if he was just blissfully  unaware and along for the ride. So, to investigate whether dogs’ brains  could tell the difference between two different languages, she and her research team recruited Kun-kun and 17 other adorable pups, and used a brain scanner to take a look at  activity in different regions of the brain.

After being trained to lie very still in  the scanner, each dog was played a clip of a woman reading excerpts from The Little  Prince in either Spanish or Hungarian. The dogs were also played scrambled,  unintelligible versions of those same clips, to see whether they could detect a difference between natural speech and non-speech at all. The researchers were then able to  use the fMRI data to see which areas of the brain were active during  each kind of sound exposure.

They found that non-speech clips activated  the dogs’ primary auditory cortex differently than the actual languages did. That suggested that the dogs could tell something was a little off about that speech. It may just be that non-speech  sounded unnatural to them.

The researchers believe the  dogs probably weren’t aware of any higher level qualities of  language, like grammar or pacing, that were missing from the scrambled clips. That data also showed that Kun-kun  and his buds seemed to be able to tell when they were hearing audio of either  familiar or unfamiliar languages. Their brains showed distinct patterns of  activity in the secondary auditory cortex and precruciate gyrus between  the Spanish and Hungarian trials.

These regions seem to be involved  in processing sound in dogs’ brains. Not only that, but the older the dog was, the more distinct the patterns between  familiar and unfamiliar languages were. The authors believe that this is evidence  that dogs get better and better at picking up the qualities of specific languages  during their time with humans, and know when they’re hearing a language that  doesn’t match the qualities they’re used to.

Whether this is a general trait in  animals, or something special about dogs that’s related to their  domestication, remains to be seen. But the research team hopes that  Kun-kun and his new friends in Hungary will be able to help them investigate  the evolution of speech perception for many years to come. Thanks for watching, and thanks to all  our patrons who helped to make it happen, especially this month’s President  of Science, Matthew Brant.

Your generous support means a lot to  us, and we’re not afraid to say it! If you’d like to get involved and join  our great community of patrons, and maybe become president of science yourself, you  can get started at patreon.com/scishow. [♪ OUTRO]