The key question that drives my research is how human communicative capacities and the underlying brain specializations evolved. I have been working with auditory neuroimaging for over twenty years, examining the neural mechanisms for voice and speech processing in multiple species. I coordinated the efforts that led to the first ever comparative dog-human fMRI and EEG studies. In 2017 I was awarded the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Lendület grant to establish the Neuroethology of Communication Lab, in 2020 also supported by an ERC Starting Grant. I am a consortium member of a MSCA-funded doctoral network on Voice Communication Sciences (2024-). Over the years my lab had 50+ members, many of whom received their own research grants, including ERC CoG and MSCA PD grants.
Postdoctoral researchers
My work in the research group focuses on the neural processing of diverse auditory stimuli in both domesticated and hand-reared wild animals. I primarily use electroencephalography (EEG) to explore my research questions. I have expertise in statistical analysis and often assist my colleagues with data interpretation. Beyond these, I am also interested in behavioural ecology and evolution, since my doctoral studies centred on sex roles and the interplay between genetic and social environments.
In general, my work focuses on interspecific vocal-social interactions, investigated through neural and behavioral approaches within an evolutionary framework. More specifically, my research spans two main areas. First, I study speech processing abilities and mechanisms in dogs, including the processing of word meaning, intonation, exaggerated prosody, voice identity, and cross-species acoustic codes. Second, my work examines the nature and mechanisms of neural reward processing, and how these depend on such factors as impulsivity and the relationship with the speaker.
PhD students
PhD topic: Tuned to humans? Voice identity processing in dogs
My PhD research contributes to the understanding of human language evolution through investigating language related capacities in animals. I widened the scope of animal electroencephalography by examining the neural mechanisms of dog puppies, wolf puppies and wild boar piglets. In my experiments I challange the human-uniqueness of certain language related abilities by demonstrating that exposure to speech might lead to the emergence of human-analogue mechanisms even in evolutionary distant species. Besides my research activities I am developing a smart device that creates a secure communication channel between a dog and a non-speaking owner.
I am a PhD student from Japan. My research focuses on functional MRI studies in dogs, investigating the olfactory sensory system. Specifically, I study how their brain processes emotional and/or social information arising from odors, how different brain regions work together in this process, as well as the underlying olfactory functional connectivity network.
With a degree in ethology, I joined the Neuroethology of Communication Lab to study the neural mechanisms of intra- and interspecific interaction and communication using a non-invasive approach. Currently, my research focuses on identifying the neural correlates of dogs’ ability to (1) represent internal emotional states of humans and conspecifics, and (2) produce spontaneous and intentional vocalisations using EEG.
PhD topic at ELTE: Investigating concept and word representations in the dog brain
PhD topic within the VoCS doctoral network: Neural processing of affective voice signals in mammals
PhD topic within the VoCS doctoral network: Voice identity learning in natural settings: a cognitive neuroethological perspective
PhD topic: A multimodal investigation of social competence in companion animals across owner reports, behaviour and neurophysiology.
I started to work at the Department of Ethology in 2022 and later joined the Neuroethology of Communication Research Group. Currently, I’m a PhD student, and my research focuses on the human-directed social competence of companion animals and non-traditional pet species, as well as on the neural basis of this ability. Therefore, I conduct electroencephalography (EEG) as well as behavioural studies.
BSc/MSc students
I work in the Neuroethology of Communication Lab, studying animal behavior and communication. For my BSc thesis, I analyzed the acoustic features of human vocalizations directed at dogs in different positive and negative contexts. My current MSc research focuses on how intense human socialization affects wild boars’ ability to follow human-given cues.
I’ve been interested in animal behaviour and cognition for a long time, I started focusing on the topic when I joined the Neuroethology of Communication Lab for my bachelor’s thesis work. The project I’m currently part of aims to study the neural correlates of dogs’ ability to differentiate between human emotional states and integrate human emotional cues through different modalities.
Trainers
The sophisticated, manifold relationship what we, humans might develop with dogs started to direct my path and career explicitly when I became engaged in training family dogs and assistance dogs. Although originally I did not intend to join animal research activities, it turned out that my experience could actually lead to them. I found myself in the work of the Family Dog Project, more recently in the Neuroethology of Communication Lab within that. For relatively shorter periods of
time I assisted various experiments most of which required dog training, teaching. This is also true for the fMRI studies, to which I have been contributing to a great extent since 2016.
Former group members
- Tamás Faragó
- Paula Pérez Fraga
- Laura Cuaya
- Raúl Hernández-Pérez
- Ivaylo B. Iotchev
- Ebru Yalcin
- Lilla Magyari
- Kitti Szabó