How You Talk to Your Pet May Affect Your Wellbeing—Researchers Ask Why
Researchers created a system to analyze how people speak to their pets and what they say to better understand their interactions.
Researchers at the University of Arizona believe that the way people speak to their pets may significantly impact their well-being. They have created a system called AURAL-Pet to analyze the content and tone of conversations between humans and their pets. The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, involved analyzing 5,072 recordings of pet-related interactions from 240 participants.
The study found that AURAL-Pet can reliably capture the nuances of human-pet interactions. Lead author Dara Jonkoski explained that the system maps out different interaction styles and their potential effects on human well-being. The team discovered that pet owners often use baby-talk, speak to their pets as if they were human confidantes, and discuss various topics unrelated to the pet.
Megan Mueller, a professor at Tufts University, praised AURAL-Pet as an innovative methodology for understanding the complex relationships between humans and their pets. By quantifying everyday interactions, AURAL-Pet can help researchers explore how pet ownership contributes to human well-being, particularly among older adults.
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