Hungarian scientists performed fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) studies on trained dogs while listening to recordings of human voices addressed to animals, children and adults. During the experiment, experts discovered a striking similarity between the brains of babies and dogs during language processing.

In one fMRI study, trained conscious dogs listened to recorded conversations from 12 females and 12 males to animals, infants, and adults during real-life interactions.

It turned out that the auditory regions of the dogs’ brains were more responsive to dog and infant speech than to adult speech. This is the first neural evidence to show that a dog’s brain is tuned to speak directly to them.

Interestingly, the canine brain’s linguistic sensitivity to dogs and babies became more pronounced when animals were shown a recording of a female voice, and this sensitivity was influenced by pitch and variations of the voice. The results of the experiment show that the way we talk to dogs is important, and their brains are particularly sensitive to the exaggerated prosody of the female voice. Source