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How you speak to your partner has unusual similarity to communicating with your pet
There’s no denying that pet dogs are an important part of our family and a recent study further proves that humans share a similar connection with them as they do with their long-term partners.
We are familiar with pooches learning to imitate their human parents, but did you know how we speak to our romantic partners is eerily similar to how we communicate with our furry friends?
Couple speak the same way they would with their pet dog and babies
Yes, you don’t need words to communicate and I think our pets have long taught us that.
A recent study published by Applied Animal Behaviour Science shows that long-term partners show similar expressions and body language while speaking to each other as they would while communicating with their pet dogs and babies.
46 participants – 23 men and 23 women – were selected from families with pets dogs as well as infants to conduct the study.
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The researchers noticed distinct facial expressions the couples displayed “when speaking to infants and dogs but were rarely observable or entirely absent when talking to friendly but unfamiliar adults.”
The study determined that couples use “motherese”, another term for “baby talk”, to communicate with each other in addition to exaggerated facial expressions while speaking to their loved ones.
The couples displayed the same facial muscle movements while speaking to their dogs or reading rhymes to their babies.
The scientists noted that the exaggerated expressions were mainly to retain the attention of the person or dog they were interacting with.
Your pet can help you relax too
Another recent study published by PLOS ONE showed that interacting with dogs can enhance the feeling of rest and relaxation in the human brain.
Interaction with animals showed a significant boost in energy, increased positivity, and lowered risk of memory loss in the participants.
The researchers objectively measured the brain activity and asked participants about their emotions to determine the overall results.
The study’s first author Onyoo Yoo said: “Animal-assisted therapy can be very beneficial for people who enjoy being around animals.
Therefore, don’t feel guilty if you find yourself lost in animal videos in the middle of a busy day. It’s just the thing you need to relax and be more productive.
