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A recent research from the ELTE Department of Ethology in Hungary found that evolutionarily ancestral brain systems enable the capacity to recognize vocal sounds, as well as the more specific ability of recognizing calls from one’s own species.
Researchers from the university’s Neuroethology of Communication Lab conducted the first examination of dogs, pigs, and humans to investigate the brain correlates of vocal comprehension across these three species that are distantly related.
Differentiating vocalizations from other sound patterns (such as water dripping or machine sounds) and identifying whether a voice belongs to a member of the same species might be essential for social animals to survive and reproduce.
Even though many animals use vocal sounds to convey crucial information, it was previously unknown how these skills are represented in the brains of mammal species that are evolutionary distant from one another.
A range of sounds, including human, dog, and pig vocalizations (e.g., human sighs or coughs, dog barking, pig grunts), as well as non-vocal ambient noises, were played for the human participants, family dogs, and family pigs in the same auditory experiment. Rapid electrical responses in the brain were recorded using EEG electrodes that were softly put on the head. Without any guidance or sedation, the animals took part because they were comfortable and calm among their human companions.
The brain’s reaction was shown to follow a two-step sequence. Any kind of vocalization caused noticeable brain activity in both humans and pigs very instantly, within 200 milliseconds of the stimulus being presented. This suggests that some sounds are particularly prominent. It took all three species 300 milliseconds to recognize a voice that belonged to their own species, indicating a more intricate vocalization identification process.
Despite the great evolutionary gap between the three species, these patterns were very comparable, suggesting that their common brain processes predate the separation of their lineages some 90 million years ago.
Interestingly, despite living in close proximity to humans, the examined dogs and pigs’ brains did not exhibit a particular sensitivity to human vocalizations. This gives support to the notion that these skills are deeply rooted in the mammalian heritage and were not impacted by recent domestication.
In addition to revealing the significant evolutionary origins of voice comprehension, the results emphasize the need of examining companion animals in order to get a deeper understanding of the human brain.
The findings demonstrate that the researchers may discover basic biological processes that have influenced communication for millions of years by collaborating with animals who have enough trust in humans to participate in these studies.
Sources:
Boglárka Morvai et al. (2025). Comparative EEG reveals general and conspecific vocalization sensitivities in evolutionarily distant mammal species, NeuroImage. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2025.121355
Dogs, pigs and humans share ancient brain mechanisms for recognizing vocal sounds. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-dogs-pigs-humans-ancient-brain.html
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