Pies: Dogs can discriminate the emotional expressions of human faces

Evidence: 86 • authority: 88

Dogs functionally respond to and use emotional information from human expressions. Abstract Emotions are critical for humans, not only feeling and expressing them, but also reading the emotional expressions of others. For a long time, this ability was thought to be exclusive to people; however, there is now evidence that other animals also rely on emotion perception to guide their behaviour and to adjust their actions in such way as to guarantee success in their social groups. This is the case for domestic dogs, who have tremendously complex abilities to perceive the emotional expressions not only of their conspecifics but also of human beings. In this paper we discuss dogs’ capacities to r…

Evidence: 73 • authority: 92

Dog brain representations of human facial expressions: Encoding happiness and differentiating specific negative expressions.. Dogs can distinguish human facial expressions, particularly happiness, yet brain processes remain unclear. Using fMRI, we conducted two experiments in awake pet dogs. In Experiment 1 ( n = 8), happy faces elicited a stronger response than neutral faces in a right temporal cluster extending to the caudate nucleus, including the rostral Sylvian gyrus. In Experiment 2 ( n = 12), dogs viewed faces expressing happiness, anger, fear, or sadness. Using the Experiment 1 cluster as a region of interest, a machine-learning classifier distinguished happiness from each negative…

Evidence: 73 • authority: 92

Cows react to human emotions displayed in videos and use this information to guide subsequent interaction choices.. The ability to perceive and interpret emotions from others provides clear evolutionary advantages for social animals. Domestic animals live in close contact with humans, making human emotional cues particularly relevant for them. Understanding how these animals recognise, memorise, and respond to human emotional signals is therefore crucial to investigating their cognitive capacities and their active role in interspecific social interactions. Thus, this study investigates whether cows can discriminate between human expressions and use this information to guide their behaviour…

Evidence: 59 • authority: 88

Perceived emotional expressions of composite faces. The eye and mouth regions serve as the primary sources of facial information regarding an individual’s emotional state. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive assessment of the relative importance of those two information sources in the identification of different emotions. The stimuli were composite facial images, in which different expressions (Neutral, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Contempt, and Surprise) were presented in the eyes and the mouth. Participants (21 women, 11 men, mean age 25 years) rated the expressions of 7 congruent and 42 incongruent composite faces by clicking on a point within the valence-arousal emo…

Evidence: 59 • authority: 92

The Complexity of Communication in Mammals: From Social and Emotional Mechanisms to Human Influence and Multimodal Applications.. Communication in mammals constitutes a complex, multimodal system that integrates visual, acoustic, tactile, and chemical signals whose functions extend beyond simple information transfer to include the regulation of social relationships, coordination of behaviour, and expression of emotional states. This article examines the fundamental mechanisms of communication from biological, neuroethological, and behavioural perspectives, with particular emphasis on domesticated and farmed species. Analysis of sensory signals demonstrates that their perception and interpre…

Evidence: 59 • authority: 92

Cows visually discriminate and cross-modally recognise familiar and unfamiliar human faces in videos.. Social recognition has been studied and demonstrated in many species. In domesticated species, the long evolutionary history shared with humans has led to investigations into their cognitive abilities towards humans, particularly regarding discrimination and recognition of humans. The present study investigated whether cows are capable of visual discrimination and cross-modal recognition of familiar and unfamiliar humans. Thirty-two cows were exposed to two tests: a visual preference test, during which two silent videos were shown simultaneously - each displaying either a familiar or an un…

Evidence: 59 • authority: 72

The human–canine bond is mainly rooted in the domestication of the dog from the wolf, which began occurring through their long-term association with hunter-gatherers more than 30,000 years ago. The earliest known genetic evidence of the relationship between dogs and humans is attested by the 1914 discovery of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog, who was buried alongside two humans in modern-day Oberkassel, Germany, approximately 15,000 years ago. Studies have demonstrated that both dogs and humans release oxytocin while spending quality time together. This release of oxytocin is correlated with the formation of a strong social bond. Canines are capable of distinguishing between positive and negative hu…

Evidence: 58 • authority: 80

Faking faces: psychopathic traits and feigned emotional expressions

Evidence: 58 • authority: 80

Dogs can discriminate human smiling faces from blank expressions

Evidence: 58 • authority: 80

Dogs Can Discriminate Emotional Expressions of Human Faces

Evidence: — • authority: 38