Puppies Know When You’re Pouting
Scientists are proving what pet owners have long believed; dogs are able to understand what we are feeling. Dogs can actually recognize the difference between a happy and an angry human face.
The Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, is the first to research and show definitively that dogs are sensitive to our facial expressions. Twenty pet dogs of various breeds and sizes were taught to play a computer game through a series of exercises.
In the first exercise, the dogs were shown how to touch video screens, one with a circle and one with a square. Through trial and error, they learned that a treat would become available to them if they chose the correct figure.
Eleven of the 20 dogs were able to catch on to the rules of the game, and make it to the next phase, where they were shown photos of faces. The dogs were only shown the upper half or the lower half of the person’s face. Half the dogs were rewarded for picking a happy expression and the other half for choosing an angry expression.
As a test, the dogs were then were presented with:
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The same half of the faces they saw during the training, but from different people -
The other half of the faces used in training
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The other half of new faces
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The left half of the faces used in training
In the vast majority of cases, the dogs chose the right answer 70 to 100% of the time.
Researchers believe that dogs can recall from memory of everyday life how a whole human face looks when happy or angry. Since the dogs who had been trained to recognize an expression of anger or happiness on the upper part of a face could identify the same expression when shown only the lower part, and vice versa.
So, be sure that you are making the correct facial expressions because as you dog owners you know that your pets not only recognize emotions but also feel empathy. Make sure they feel loved even if they are in trouble.
