Classification of Dog Barks by Human Listeners

This study aimed to investigate whether human listeners are able to classify dog barks recorded in different situations. The authors recorded barks from 14 dogs in three different contexts: isolation, play, and food anticipation. They then played the barks to 41 human listeners, who were asked to classify the barks according to the context in which they were recorded. The results showed that the listeners were able to classify the barks with a high degree of accuracy, indicating that there are distinct acoustic features in dog barks that convey information about the context in which they are produced. The authors suggest that these findings have implications for the study of animal communication and for the development of technology that can automatically classify animal vocalizations.