Language: Dogs pick up on individual words in a similar way to human babies, study finds

Dogs are able to pick up on individual words in sentences spoken to them using similar computations and brain regions as human babies, a study has found. When we are infants, we learn to spot new words in a stream of speech first, before we actually learn what each individual word means. To tell where each word ends and another begins, babies use complex calculations that keep track of which syllables appear together -- and thus likely form words. By using a combination of brain imaging techniques, experts led from Hungary's Eötvös Loránd University have shown that dogs are capable of similar feats. This is the first time that the capacity to apply so-called statistical learning has been shown to be demonstrated in a non-human mammal.