health
Dogs can distinguish between fearful and angry or sad human faces, brain scans suggest
Researchers analysed activity in regions of brain when dogs were shown images of different facial expressions
TL;DR
- Dog brains can differentiate between fearful human faces and those showing anger or sadness.
- Previous studies could not clarify if dogs could distinguish different types of happy or unhappy faces.
- Brain scans revealed increased activity in certain areas when dogs were shown happy faces compared to neutral ones.
- Dogs' brains could distinguish happy faces from negative expressions, but not different types of unhappy faces when analyzing whole-brain activity.
- Analyzing specific brain regions showed dogs could distinguish sad vs. fearful faces and angry vs. fearful faces, but not angry vs. sad faces.
- The study suggests dogs may need additional information, like body language, to distinguish between anger and sadness.
- Research has practical implications, such as using expressions of happiness during dog training to aid learning.
- Limitations include a small sample size, predominantly border collies, and all dogs being healthy without behavioral problems.