Soo.... Can your puppy potty train your baby and vice-versa?????
Babies understand dog-speak, new study finds
Research from Brigham Young University (BYU) gives new meaning to the expression "babes in the woods." It turns out, babies may not be as naive as we once thought especially where their canine counterparts are concerned.
A new study shows that babies can "speak dog" (or at least comprehend it), even with little or no previous exposure to dogs. Infants just six months old matched the sounds of an angry bark and a friendly yap to photos of dogs displaying threatening or welcoming body language, respectively.
While paring babies and dogs might seem like a zany idea, according to BYU, experiments of this kind help us understand how babies learn. Long before they master speech, babies astutely recognize and respond to external stimuli.
These findings come on the heels of a study from the same Brigham Young University lab showing that infants can also detect mood swings in Beethoven's music.
"Emotion is one of the first things babies pick up on in their social world," said BYU psychology professor Ross Flom, lead author of the study. "We chose dogs because they are highly communicative creatures both in their posture and the nature of their bark," Flom said.
In the experiment, the babies were shown two different pictures of the same dog, one in an aggressive posture and the other in a friendly stance. Then the researchers played — in random order — sound clips of a friendly and an aggressive dog bark.
While the recordings played, the six-month-old babies spent most of their time staring at the appropriate picture. Older babies usually made the connection instantly with their very first glance.
Study co-authors Dan Hyde and Heather Whipple Stephenson conducted the experiments as undergrads and don't recall any babies getting upset. "Infants are pretty cooperative subjects," Stephenson said.Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?entry_id=43951#ixzz0M8fzm4QJ
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