How dogs hear us: human voice perception by domestic dogs.

对于家养的狗来说，理解我们的信号是一种重要的社交能力。我们经常听说，与其他动物相比，狗狗对指向等视觉信号的反应非常熟练，但我们对它们如何感知我们的声音知之甚少，尽管我们一直在和它们说话。我们很多人都认为狗狗能很好地理解我们，但是当我们和它们说话时，它们到底听到了什么呢？狗狗能理解我们的语气，识别我们说的话，还是两者兼而有之？它们是如何知道自己的名字、主人的声音或口头命令的？他们如何从我们复杂的语言流中挑选出这些信息呢？这些学习能力会随着他们的一生而改变，还是取决于他们与人的社交经历？狗狗们是否天生就比其他人更能适应我们声音的某些方面？我们能否利用这些偏见来帮助它们学会对我们做出反应？这能否解释为什么我们和狗说话就像和婴儿说话一样，而不是假设我们这样做只是因为伴侣狗似乎经常扮演类似的角色？有这么多的问题，我们没有答案，但这些都是重要的问题，在社会和训练情况下，错误的沟通会大大降低人与狗之间的互动质量，并可能导致双方参与者的福利受损。我们的研究试图通过以下方式来解决这些问题：a)记录幼犬人类声音感知能力的发展，包括与成年狗的直接比较，以探索年龄和社会经历对这些能力的影响；B)调查一些帮助人类婴儿学习物体名称的声音特征是否也能影响狗的学习，如果有，是如何影响的；c)确定狗狗如何处理我们经常复杂的话语，以提取有用的信息。我们的研究团队在动物和人类的声音交流和认知的功能和进化方面具有相关优势，并在研究狗对声音线索的感知方面具有具体经验。我们建议对来自不同社会背景的幼犬和成年犬进行一系列六项多成分实证研究，以解决上述关键重点领域的关键研究问题并检验新的假设。这项研究将在一个研究不足的话题中产生新的知识，并阐明狗与人类社会互动的一个重要方面，这个方面很少被考虑到，但可能非常重要。我们的项目包括一些核心活动，向参与狗狗福利、训练和管理的广大从业员以及公众展示这些成果。此外，学校亦会举办活动，为教职员提供专业发展的机会。

For domestic dogs, understanding our signals is an important social ability. We often hear that dogs are highly skilled at responding to visual signals like pointing in comparison to other animals, yet we know very little about how they perceive our voices, despite the fact that we talk to them all the time. Many of us think that dogs understand us quite well, but what exactly do they hear when we speak to them? Can dogs interpret our tone of voice, recognise our words, or both? How do they learn their name, their owner's voice, or spoken commands? How can they pick this information out from our complex streams of speech? Do these learning abilities change over their lifetime, or depend on their social experiences with people? Are dogs naturally tuned into some aspects of our voices more than others, and can we use these biases to help them to learn to respond to us? Can this explain why we talk to dogs similarly to babies, rather than assuming that we only do so because companion dogs often seem to fall into a comparable role? There are so many questions that we do not have the answers for, yet these are important questions for social and training situations, where miscommunication can significantly reduce the quality of the interactions between people and dogs, and potentially lead to the compromised welfare of both participants. Our research seeks to address these questions by: a) documenting the development of human voice perception abilities in puppies, including direct comparisons with adult dogs to explore the influence of age and social experiences on these abilities; b) investigating whether some of the voice features that help human babies to learn object names can also influence learning in dogs, and if so, how; and c) determining how dogs cope with our often complex utterances in order to extract useful information. Our research team has the relevant strengths in the function and evolution of vocal communication and cognition in both animals and humans, as well as specific experience investigating dogs' perception of vocal cues. We propose to conduct a series of six multi-component empirical studies with puppies and adult dogs from different social backgrounds, that will address key research questions and test novel hypotheses in the key focus areas identified above.This research will yield new knowledge in an under-researched topic, and illuminate an important aspect of dogs' social interactions with humans that has rarely been considered, yet is potentially of great importance. Our project includes core events that will showcase these results to a wide range of practitioners involved in dog welfare, training and management, as well as the general public. There will also be activities to supplement the professional development opportunities for school staff.