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Dogs can distinguish human emotions by recognising facial expressions such as happiness, anger, fear and sadness, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Vienna in Austria.
Scientists analysed brain activity in dogs and found direct evidence that they can identify different emotional expressions on human faces.
According to a Reuters report published Tuesday, researchers monitored the brain activity of 12 pet dogs while they were shown photographs of unfamiliar people displaying different emotions. The researchers then used machine-learning technology to analyse the dogs’ brain signals.
The study was published in the Cell Press scientific journal iScience.
Researchers first examined the dogs’ responses to smiling human faces. Eight dogs were shown photographs of people with happy and neutral expressions.
When the dogs viewed smiling faces, distinct activity was detected in the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus of their brains.
This led researchers to believe that a smiling human face carries particular emotional significance for dogs.
In a second experiment, all 12 dogs were shown faces expressing happiness, anger, fear and sadness. Their brains did not respond in the same way to all four emotions. In particular, researchers identified distinct differences in brain activity when the dogs viewed fearful faces compared with angry and sad expressions.
Senior study author Laura Cuaya said dogs may have developed the social ability to understand and respond to human facial expressions through their long history of living alongside people.
A better understanding of this ability could potentially improve communication between humans and dogs as well as the way dogs are cared for, she said.
The researchers, however, cautioned that all the dogs involved in the study were household pets living with families. It remains unclear whether dogs raised on the streets or in different environments process human emotional cues in the same way.