Dogs can distinguish between emotions in a human face, study shows
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A study revealed man’s best friend can distinguish emotions in people’s faces.
PHOTO: REUTERS
- Dogs can distinguish between different human emotions by recognising facial expressions, as shown by brain scan analysis using machine learning.
- Happy faces activate dogs' temporal cortex and caudate nucleus, linked to reward, while anger, fear, and sadness trigger distinct but different brain patterns.
- Researchers plan to study how dogs use other cues like body language and voice, and compare emotional processing between human and canine brains.
AI generated
BERLIN – A peek inside dogs’ brains revealed man’s best friend can distinguish emotions in people’s faces, researchers at the University of Vienna have found, providing what they said was the first evidence of such an ability.
In the study, researchers used machine learning to analyse brain scans of 12 dogs as the animals viewed images of human faces displaying different emotions, the university said in a press statement on Aug 11.
Researchers found that brain regions linked to higher cognitive functions and reward processing – the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus – were activated only by images of happy strangers.
Anger, fear and sadness did not trigger those regions, according to the study, published in Cell Press journal iScience on Aug 10.
However, when the researchers looked at the whole brain, they found distinct activity patterns that differentiated fear from anger and sadness, providing the first evidence that dogs can tell apart specific negative facial expressions.
“Dogs have evolved with us to understand our expressions and cooperate with us, and recognising that can change how we communicate with and care for them,” senior author Laura Cuaya said.
The researchers next plan to investigate how dogs integrate other cues, including body language, voice nuances and scent, to interpret the humans around them.
They also hope to compare how human and canine brains process the same emotional signals.
The researchers added that participants in the study were all pets from loving families and cautioned that dogs outside such environments may respond differently to human emotional cues.
REUTERS
