Until now it was thought that animals are capable of interpreting the emotions of others and anticipating their intentions, but only with respect to members of the same species. To capture the emotions of foreign specimens, the brain must be able to transcribe mental representations of images and sounds in order to evaluate, compare, associate and combine them. However, a new study from the University of Lincoln, in the United Kingdom, and the University of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, shows that our dog friends are capable of interpreting our moods.
To carry out this study, published in the journal Biology Letters of the British Royal Society, the researchers involved placed 17 dogs in front of images of human faces that expressed joy or anger, associated with the voice of a happy or angry person . The representations of happy faces were successively associated with a pleasant voice and an irritated voice. They then did the same with images of visibly upset people. Well, those responsible for the study found that the dogs paid more attention when the facial expressions were consistent with the voice, implying that they were capable of associating the link and deciding whether the information was coherent. According to one of the study’s authors, Kun Guo of the University of Lincoln, “research shows that dogs have the ability to integrate two different sources of sensory information and to develop a coherent perception of human emotions. This cognitive ability alone it had been detected in humans. “
Many dog owners would say that their pets are very sensitive to the moods of family members. However, there is an important difference between learning to react appropriately to an angry voice and deciphering other information. The authors of the study specify that “during the experiment, the dogs did not have a period of familiarization with the chosen humans. This suggests that the ability to associate emotional signals is something peculiar to the animal. This aptitude may be due to the particular relationship that the dogs have. dogs have been with humans for centuries. “
Photo credit: Image courtesy of University of Lincoln
