Whether with a sympathetic tilt or excited sweep a tail head, dogs seem to feel that they can say exactly what we feel.
Science is still undecided on the issue, despite the evidence in favor of the idea is stacked.
Now, a new study found that dogs are able to distinguish between expressions of happy and angry human faces. (Related: "animal spirits" in National Geographic magazine.)
Corsin Müller biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria Medicine, and colleagues tested 11 dogs, border collies including a fox terrier, a golden retriever, German Shepherd, and some dogs using a touch screen. Scientists trained dogs to play well a happy face or an angry face in luck.
They had dogs, either the top half or the bottom half of the faces to ensure that animals are not just a smile or exposure of the teeth meet. Emotions shown in all parts of the human face, not just the mouth, says Müller, whose study was published Feb. 12 in the journal Current Biology.
"If you are angry, a wrinkle between the eyes occurs," he explains. The shape of the eyes may also change.
So if the dogs were actually able to detect an emotion, they should be able to do whatever the part of the face that looked. (See "Dogs can feel our emotions? One study suggests Yawn Yes.")
Face Time"happy poems"
Once Müller and his colleagues trained dogs, ran through the choice of trials in which the animals have had to choose between the strange faces, either happy or angry expressions. The researchers presented the dogs with either the up, down, left, or half a face. Scientists chose the left half because previous studies have found that dogs prefer to see the left side of the face.
Animals trained to detect happy expressions could do when presented with different halves of a face, and when presented with animal faces had not seen before. (Watch a video about working dogs.)
Trained to respond to faces angry dogs could also choose the expressions of anger among the options being asked to do. However, it took them longer to learn his duties as trained dogs happy faces.
Müller believes that the delay could be because the dogs had negative associations with angry faces. Maybe angry faces meant a dog does not receive any Pats, while happy faces meant belly rub, he suggests. (See "The dogs are jealous, too.")
Man's best friend"happy poems"
Researchers do not yet know whether the ability of dogs to discriminate between the two expressions is due to past experiences or a result of the domestication process.
Whatever the reason, it is not surprising that dogs can tell the facial expressions of difference, says Müller. "Because we spend so much time with humans, they have many opportunities to see the human expressions." (See "Amazing Stories of devotees five dogs.")
Marc Bekoff, behavioral ecologist who specializes in canine University of Colorado, Boulder, agrees. People and dogs have forged a connection incredibly close together for thousands of years, says Bekoff, who was not involved in the study. Along the way, dogs have been bred for certain traits, and "one of the features is the ability to read." (See "How to build a dog" in National Geographic magazine.)
The question now is whether the dogs who spend time with the people also would be nice to pick up our expressions like dogs inexperienced people add Bekoff.
Müller intends to pursue this matter, and look after the domestication played a role in the ability to read human expressions. For this study, the biologist plans to test species like cats, pigs and hand-raised wolves."happy poems"
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