Here's Scientific Prove That Dogs Can Read Our Emotions!

Have you ever wondered if your dog knows what your expressions mean? A team of experts from a university in Italy recently published a study in the Learning & Behavior journal that indicated that dogs can read human emotions.

Their study involved feeding 26 dogs while showing them photographs of the adult faces of women and men. Each photo showed a different emotion, ranging from happy to sad and from angry to relaxed, and the pictures were placed in the line of sight of each dog as they ate from their bowls.

When dogs saw images that showed angry, happy, or frightened expressions, their cardiac activity increased, and they were not able to return to their previous activities immediately after eating. This indicates that these emotionally charged images gave the dogs feelings of stress!

Also, the dogs seemed to process these strong emotions in different parts of their brains. They looked left when seeing the frightened, happy, or angry pictures, but looked right while seeing relaxed, sad, or surprised pictures.

This isn’t the first time a study has suggested that dogs may be able to understand the expressions of humans. Apparently, the centuries that dogs spent living and growing with humans has allowed them to develop social cognition!

Feature Image Source: Pixabay