"Super, well done," her trainer says, and Maya, a Hungarian golden retriever, happily holds up her left paw, responding to the praise.
Maya works with a group of Hungarian researchers at the Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, who have scanned the brains of 13 dogs, finding that dogs process words and intonation to work out messages similarly to humans.
The study showed that dogs, like people, use the left hemisphere of their brain to process words, and a right hemisphere brain region to process intonation. Praise activates dogs' reward center only when both words and intonation match.
"We showed dogs . . .
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