Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed the first reliable tool capable of analyzing people’s everyday communication with their pets. The new method will help scientists objectively examine how talking to four-legged companions affects their owners’ mental well-being.
The study found that pet owners devote about one-tenth of their speaking time to communicating with their animals. At the same time, researchers discovered that the style and intensity of these interactions vary dramatically between individuals, which may help explain why pets appear to have a much more positive effect on some people’s health than on others.
The tool developed specifically for this study, AURAL-Pet, is a coding system that categorizes different types of human-animal interaction. It evaluates components such as praise, asking questions, giving commands, and expressing frustration.
To collect objective data, the researchers used a smartphone application called EAR, which activated randomly throughout the day and recorded participants’ everyday routines. To ensure the accuracy of the study, the 240 participants were not told that the researchers were specifically studying their interactions with pets, eliminating the risk of behavior being altered by this knowledge.
According to the authors of the study, published in the psychiatric journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, this approach could help resolve conflicting views surrounding the so-called “pet effect.” Previous research has often produced inconsistent findings about whether having a pet actually reduces loneliness and depression.
The researchers are now using the new tool in another project investigating the mental health of people over the age of 60. They suggest that pets may often take on the role of a social partner or act as a kind of social catalyst, helping their owners interact with other people.
The key advantage of the innovative method is that it captures people’s natural, unfiltered behavior rather than relying solely on subjective responses provided in questionnaires. The researchers believe that this objective approach could take the study of the psychological effects of human-animal relationships to a new and more effective level.
