Yes, Research Concludes That Dogs Can Read The Smile On Your Face!

Over the last decade, research studies have focused on whether animals have emotions and respond to the emotional expressions of others.

Significantly, one research has been published in the Current Biology Journal that provides the first solid evidence that dogs can differentiate human emotions through facial expressions.

Biologist Corsin Müller of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, and colleagues, used a touch screen apparatus to test 11 dogs of varied species, including a Fox Terrier, a Golden Retriever, and a German Shepherd. These are the four highlights of their research:

1. Pet dogs can discriminate emotional expressions in human faces.
2. Discrimination based on simple cues can be ruled out.
3. Level of domestication or interaction with humans may influence the ability.
4. Dogs likely accomplish the task by using their memories of actual experiences.

This demonstration involved two canine groups that learned to discriminate 15 picture pairs with happy and angry human faces. One group was shown the upper halves of faces, while the other group was shown the lower halves of faces. Afterwards, the dogs were tested with four types of probe trials:

1. Left half of the faces used in training
2. Right half of the faces used in training
3. Upper half of novel faces
4. Lower half of novel faces

It is worthy to note that dogs for which pictures of happy faces were rewarded learned discrimination more quickly than dogs for which angry faces were rewarded.

Feature Image Source: Pixabay