狗狗是最好的倾听者，而这可能是因为它们会使用与人类相似的大脑区域来处理声音信息。
研究人员收集了将近200种声音样本，其中包括人类和狗狗们的声音、环境噪音和安静时的“一声不响”。他们向22个受试人类与11条受试狗狗播放这些声音片段，与此同时，受试对象的大脑会接受功能性磁共振扫描。
人类大脑能对大部分声音做出反应，而狗狗则对环境的声音最敏感。不过，我们和狗狗仍然有很多相似之处：人和狗都有一个对同类声音最为敏感的特定脑区，并且，这个区域也会对其他物种的声音做出反应。同时，人和狗都有另一个能察觉声音中情感的脑区，这一区域对“高兴”的声音格外敏感（比如大笑声），而对悲伤的声音反应迟钝（比如狗狗的哀鸣）。这项研究发表在了《当代生物学》（Current Biology）杂志上。
几千年的驯化过程，似乎使我们的毛绒朋友对声音有了与我们相同的敏感性，这也许就是汪星人们如此靠得住的原因之一吧。
（撰文 苏菲·布什威克（Sophie Bushwick）翻译 李轩）
原文：
Lassie And Timmy Hear Vocals In Same Brain Area
Functional MRI brain scans show that man and man's best friend use analogous brain regions to process vocalizations of both their own and the other species. Sophie Bushwick reports.
Dogs make great listeners. And that may be because man and man's best friend use analogous brain regions to process voices.
Researchers collected almost 200 sound samples, including human and canine vocalizations, as well as environmental noises and silence. They played these clips to 22 people and 11 dogs while the subjects’ brains were undergoing functional MRI scans.
Human brains tuned in most to vocal sounds. Dog brains were most sensitive to environmental noises. But they still had a lot in common. A dedicated brain area reacted strongly to the vocalizations of their own species. And that area also responded to the voices of the other species. Meanwhile, a different brain region noted emotion in a voice, with a strong response to cheery sounds like laughter and a weaker reaction to unhappy noises like canine whining. The study is in the journal Current Biology. [Attila Andics et al, Voice-Sensitive Regions in the Dog and Human Brain Are Revealed by Comparative fMRI]
Seems that thousands of years of domestication have made our furry friends sensitive to the same vocal cues we are. You can confide in Fido.
文章来源：科学美国人