A study has shown that people are able to precisely identify a
range of emotions in dogs from changes in their facial expressions.
The research showed that volunteers could correctly spot when a
dog was happy, sad, angry, surprised or scared, when shown only a picture of
the animal’s face, suggesting that humans are naturally attuned to detecting
how animals are feeling.
Dr Tina Bloom, a psychologist who led the research, said: “There
is no doubt that humans have the ability to recognize emotional states in other
humans and accurately read other humans’ facial expressions. We have shown that
humans are also able to accurately – if not perfectly – identify at least one
dog’s facial expressions.
“Although humans often think of themselves as disconnected or
even isolated from nature, our study suggests that there are patterns that
connect, and one of these is in the form of emotional communication.”
The study, published in the journal Behavioral Processes,
used photographs of a police dog named Mal, a five-year-old Belgian shepherd
dog, as it experienced different emotions. To trigger a happy reaction,
researchers praised Mal. The result was the dog looking straight at the camera
with ears up and tongue out.
They then reprimanded the dog to produce a “sad” reaction,
causing the animal to pull a mournful expression with eyes cast down.
Surprise, generated using a jack-in-the box, caused the
dog to wrinkle the top of its head into something akin to a frown. Medicine
that Mal did not like was produced to stimulate disgust – flattened ears – and
nail trimmers, which Mal also disliked, were brandished to create fear, causing
the ears to prick up and the whites of the eyes to show.
For anger, a researcher pretended to be a criminal. Mal’s
teeth were bared in the beginnings of a snarl.
The resulting photographs were shown to 50 volunteers, who
were split into two groups according to their experience of dogs.
By far the easiest emotion they recognised was happiness,
with 88 per cent of the volunteers correctly identifying it. Anger was
identified by 70 per cent of participants.
About 45 per cent of volunteers spotted when Mal was
frightened, while 37 per cent could identify the relatively subtle emotion of
sadness.
The canine expressions that were hardest for humans to
identify were surprise and disgust, with only 20 per cent of the volunteers recognizing surprise and just 13 per cent recognizing disgust.
The study by Dr Bloom and Prof Harris Friedman, both from
Walden University, in Minneapolis, found that people with minimal experience of
dogs were better at identifying canine disgust and anger, perhaps because dog
owners convinced themselves that their dog was not aggressive and so the
associated facial expression was just playing.
The researchers believe the ability of inexperienced
volunteers to sometimes be better judges of emotions may be because reading
dogs’ faces comes naturally, rather than being a learned skill.
Dr Bloom said she hoped further research might determine
whether this apparent natural empathy with canines was something we shared with
all mammals, or could be explained by humans and dogs evolving side-by-side for
the past 100,000 years.
As a dog lover — who was “very confident” in her ability
to read the faces of her two Dobermans and two Rhodesian ridge-backs — she
admitted such unproven theories were emotionally appealing.
She added: “If I adopted a cat, or a snake or a turtle, I
don’t think it would be as emotionally attached to me and watching my face as
much as a dog would. There is something different and special about a dog — I’m
not sure what it is, but it’s there.”
Beverley Cuddy, the editor of Dogs Today, said dog lovers
would feel vindicated by the research. “I am not at all surprised that science
has finally accepted what we knew all along — dog and owner communicate
perfectly well without words.”
Keep your tails wagging
Bear's P4ws
Packing for you pooch can be a little overwhelming,
especially if this is your first fur-family outing. Bear has his very own puppy suitcase
(although he still doesn't enjoy seeing things being packed away and WILL try
to unpack as I pack) and a checklist to go with it.
