Research shows that tilting your dog’s head can provide clues about their cognitive ability

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According to a study posted in Animal CognitionScientists have determined that your dog’s head tilt may be related to how they process memory.

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From a previous study on how dogs learn words, scientists stumbled upon a link to that adorable head tilt we all know and love.

Study author, Andrea Sommese, an animal science researcher at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, argues that the behavior is directly related to human verbal vocalization. Here’s what researchers found.

How Your Dog’s Head Tilt Binds to Their Memory

To investigate further, the researchers analyzed the pattern of head tilt compared between “gifted” dogs and more “typical” dogs. All gifted dogs in this study were Border Collies, as previously reported here on DogTime.

Researchers then found that gifted dogs tilted their heads when a human spoke the name of a toy they knew. The same result was seen on assignments they were good at.

This led the researchers to hypothesize that tilting a dog’s head implies a deeper level of “watching.”

They even went so far as to say that it can cause a visual image in the pup’s head that they observe curiously.

Even the tilt direction, Alexis Nedd reported in a previous study via mashable, responds to the cognitive behavior of a dog. Usually a dog tilts its head to the right. That’s the side of the brain that processes positive words and compliments.

What this hypothesis could lead to

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Smithsonian Magazine quoted Monique Udell, a researcher on human-animal interaction at Oregon State University, about what tilting a dog’s head might really mean.

To Rachel Fritts from Science, Udell ventured the question, “Can we tilt the head to predict the aptitude for word learning, or attention, or memory?” By asking these kinds of questions, scientists will delve deeper into a dog’s cognitive behavior, reasoning, and decision-making.

All the authors of the study, according to Smithsonian, agree that this research is just getting started. However, it seems that for now we can all interpret the tilt of our dog’s head as a sign of deeper understanding.

To learn more about why your dog tilts its head, check out DogTime’s full article on this topic here!

When did you see your dog tilt its head? What do you think it means? Let us know in the comments below.