Watch [1] @ 1:08. Is it really a mystery as to why canines tilt their heads when spoken to? It's always seemed self-evident that they are hearing a sound that is of interest and they are evaluating to see if it's useful information.
> Is it really a mystery as to why canines tilt their heads when spoken to?
Yes, it is. "Complete concentration" or shifting ears this way and that way to better assess where sound comes from? I do something similar, when trying to localize the source of some odd sound, though I do more rotations around the vertical axis, and less around a horizontal ones. But humans more visually inclined species, so we mostly rely on eyes when searching for a source of a sound (it may go funny, when you misattributed sound, and then corrected a mistake, it feels like the sound instantly relocated from one place to the other).
Or maybe doggie tilting its head is trying to see whould your face look better if tilted?
Or it signals about its concentration on sounds, so other members of the pack kept quiet?
Or (a hypothesis attributed to a cat in some fictional book) doggie tries to hide how stupid it is? I like this one, because my dog acts this way, when I talk to it, whining on the perils of a working man in an inegalitarian society.
> I do something similar, when trying to localize the source of some odd sound, though I do more rotations around the vertical axis, and less around a horizontal ones.
But the dog in the article is doing the behavior after the sound is finished. There is nothing more to hear.
The dog is clearly processing the noun and preparing to go search for the objective and retrieve it.
I oftentimes also straining my ears after the sound have finished. It is hard to strain them before the sound, it is possible only if you anticipate the sound.
When dog needs to think it may tilt its head, but it wouldn't help to think. We might try to devise a hypothesis that it shakes blood with oxygen and glucuse rendering them more accessible to neurons, but I wouldn't buy it.
It is either a late attempt to catch the sound in its fullness, or it is a some kind of a signal to others. Or both.
My guess that it is a fixed action pattern of canines allowing them to locate a source of a sound, but it was repurposed by interactions with humans as a signal, that may be read as "Did I hear a learned noun?" With the following "Yeah, I see your expectant look, it seems I heard. Ok! I'm on it!".
It gives an idea of another experiment. To teach dogs to get visual commands, like given by gestures, pictures, or anything else they could digest. And to see would they tilt their heads receiving such commands. If they wouldn't then the tilting is nothing more than their way to respond to an important sound. I didn't tried it, but judging by my experience of interacting with dogs, they wouldn't tilt their head, if the situation doesn't involve sound processing.
1. https://youtu.be/D2SoGHFM18I