Yes, Dogs Can Recognize Sounds Meaning Yes or No

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Our ability to communicate with dogs is a vital part of our relationship with them. At the most primitive level, we ought to be able to discourage a dog from some action—"No! Don't do that!"—or encourage activity: "Yes! Do it!" We do not have to rely on trained linguistic commands.

Back in the 1970s, Eugene Morton, who was with the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park, discovered that there were some universal dimensions of sounds used by most mammals and birds to indicate their emotional state and whether they wanted other individuals to “stop, don’t come any closer!” Or whether it was okay to approach them. This launched a continuing exploration of common sounds that animals make and how they are interpreted.

Components of Animal Sounds

The basic dimensions of animal sounds are:

• Pitch: Low-pitched sounds, such as a dog's growl, usually indicate threats, anger, and the possibility of aggression. These are interpreted as, "Stay away from me." High-pitched sounds mean the opposite, asking to be allowed to come closer or saying that it is safe to approach. It is best characterized by the fundamental frequency, which is the lowest frequency sound in the mix.
• Duration: Generally speaking, the longer the sound, the more likely that the dog is making a conscious decision about the nature of the signal and the following behaviors. Thus, a long growl is more threatening than a short one.
• Frequency: Refers to how often the sound is repeated. Repetitions, especially at a fast rate, indicate a degree of excitement and urgency.

More recently, investigators have begun examining:

• Timbre: Which is a measure of the complexity of a sound. Experimentally, researchers often use what they call the harmonics-to-noise ratio. A high ratio appears to be melodic, inviting, and sweet-sounding, while a low ratio sounds scratchy and coarse, and feels threatening.

How Animals Interpret Human Sounds

A team of researchers led by Anna Gábor at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, looked into this. They set out to determine whether certain human sounds are naturally interpreted by dogs as signals for yes versus no, or here versus there.

The researchers set up a situation similar to the children’s game hot or cold. This is a simple hide-and-seek game where one person hides an object and the other tries to find it. The one who hid the object gives verbal cues using temperature words—hotter when the seeker is moving closer and colder when they are moving away from the object.

In this experiment, the dog’s owners knelt behind a screen. They could see their dogs by peering through it, but the dogs could only see the tops of the owners' heads. This way, the owner could actively modify the sounds that they were making to guide the dog’s movement, while a dog could not rely on their owner’s body or facial signals. The only “word” that the people could speak sounded like the simple syllable “by” in English, although the speaker could freely vary the emphasis and speech style, including the length, volume, pitch, or number of repetitions of the sound.

During the experiment, the dogs’ owners had to guide the dog either toward themselves or to a distant location near a fan with streamers on it, where some treats could be found. The experimenters recorded the sounds the owners made and measured the characteristics of those sounds when the dog moved in the desired direction (away toward the treats or closer to the owner).

Yes Versus No Sounds

These investigators did an extensive analysis of the speech sounds that the dogs seemed to interpret accurately. There were clear indications that the dogs understood the sounds people were making, at least in terms of "yes," meaning to continue what the dog was already doing, versus "no," meaning the dog should stop what it was doing and perhaps do something else. The distinctiveness in signaling "here" versus "there" was much weaker, and the dogs apparently accomplished those tasks by understanding the yes and no signals, which got them to the correct location.

Which are the sounds that dogs interpret as "No, stop that!"? What may cause a dog to cease doing what it was doing is a sound with a lower pitch, a louder sound, or one that is more extended in length. It will also sound gruffer and raspier because the harmonics-to-noise ratio is lower.

We can contrast this with what dogs interpret as "Yes, keep doing that". These positive, encouraging sounds have a higher pitch, are short, and are often repeated several times; they are not as loud and have a much more melodic sound (lacking gruff or growly components).

Are These Sounds Learned?

The dog owners who participated in this experiment had not been trained to make specific sounds to guide, encourage, or inhibit the activities of their dogs; they arrived at the use of the appropriate tones through experience with their own pets, or perhaps even their experiences when speaking to other human beings.

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For example, for several years, I had a TV show called "Good Dog!" It was nationally broadcast in Canada on the Life Network and focused on dog training and solving common problematic canine behaviors. People who saw the show asked why my voice seemed to rise an octave in pitch and become singsong in tone when speaking to the dogs. My answer: The dogs paid more attention when I used those intonations during training. They seemed to know when they were doing the right thing if I made those kinds of noises, and so they learned faster in response to that particular tone of voice.

Inadvertently, I had hit upon the combination of sounds that means Yes! for dogs. According to the authors of the above research, this reflects no great insight on my part, because they suggest that the interpretations of the specific sound patterns that express encouragement or indicate objection to ongoing behaviors are probably wired into the genes of most mammals and even birds. One might say that although we are not born with an understanding of “right” versus “wrong,” people and dogs seem to begin life with the ability to understand "yes" versus "no."

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