Dog Brain Scanners Reveal Canine Response to Human Smiles
Scientists discover that a dog's reward circuitry lights up when viewing smiling human faces, even from strangers.
En resumen
Scientists at the University of Vienna used brain scanners on 14 dogs and found that reward circuitry activates when dogs view happy human faces, even from strangers, but does not differentiate between negative emotions.
Resumen generado por IA
Por qué importa
Previous research on dogs showed that the same brain region lights up when anticipating food or smelling a familiar person.
Any dog lover will tell you their canine friend picks up on their mood and emotions.
Now scientists have worked out exactly what is going on inside a dog's brain when it sees a human - even a complete stranger - smiling or scowling.
Their research involved 14 dogs in total who all sat very still in a brain scanner while they were shown pictures of people's faces.
Photographs of happy, smiling human faces made an area of the brain that is associated with reward "light up" with activity.
This reward circuitry is the part of the brain that is activated when we enjoy and remember good things, like tasty food or praise.
In terms of our own brains, we often refer to it as the "hit" or "high" that is triggered by winning a game or even receiving a positive comment on a social media post.
In previous research on dogs, the same brain region has been found to light up when the dogs anticipated a tasty snack, or smelled a familiar person.
"It controls us having motivation to do things - wanting to do things," explained Laura Cuaya, one of the study's lead researchers at the University of Vienna. "So this finding suggests that happy faces, even those of strangers have a positive value for dogs."
Cuaya and her co-researcher, Raúl Hernández-Pérez, went on to investigate how dogs responded to other human emotions - showing dogs images of people displaying happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. But the reward circuitry only responded to happy faces.
"Dogs can distinguish between positive emotions and all the others, but they don't seem to be able to distinguish between the different negative emotions," Hernández-Pérez, also at the University of Vienna, told BBC News.
Laura Cuaya and Raúl Hernández-Pérez are partners in research and in life - and something of a canine-cognition power couple. After meeting at secondary school in Mexico the two went on to work together on research projects that have revealed how dogs interpret and respond to human language and behaviour.
It is work that has revealed insights into the biology underlying the unique relationship between humans and their dogs.
The couple's own border collies, Odín and Kun-kun, have taken part in several of their research projects - including this one. And the couple recruited other dogs - and their owners - for their studies by politely approaching people in the dog park.
"If we saw someone with a dog that was the right size [for the scanner] - and looked calm and like it was well trained, we'd ask if they would be interested in helping," recalled Hernández-Pérez.
Preguntas abiertas
- How do dogs process more complex combinations of human emotions?
