Johnson: Study: Dogs interpret facial expressions

Those two little orbs on either side of the nose not only help people find their way around and to interpret information, they also send messages of their own.

The eyes communicate things such as attentive listening, humor, frustration, anger or disbelief and add a layer to communication that enriches interactions, often beyond what words alone can accomplish.

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The messages exchanged by eye contact are so important to humans, in fact, that most people are taught from a young age to look others in the eye because it conveys quality and strength of character.

By the same token, what one sees – again the eyes come into play — in the face of another communicates volumes, and expressions serve as critical cues to interpreting emotional state, meaning and intention.

Humans understand, consciously and unconsciously, that the face and visual cues expressed to one another provide valuable insight into the mind and regularly rely on such things to guide interactions with others — put simply, they help us get along with one another and most importantly, function and survive in social settings.

Other animals, too, rely on visual cues for communication, but of those, the ones that hold a high level of interest for scientists tend to be those creatures that cohabit with humans in domestication.

It is, of course, intriguing to investigate how creatures manage to communicate when they are of different species.

Even more intriguing is the natural tendency of an adoption and merging of traits over time as creatures learn from one another — and as the animal with the longest history of domestication and most established social relationship with man, dogs make an obvious choice for studies.

Research has established that dogs have empathy when it comes to people. They learn to watch our cues, understand our moods, follow our directions and work to integrate with us as much as possible.

What researchers still want to know, however, is how they do these things and to what extent their processes mimic ours.

With the goal of understanding how man’s best friend views facial expressions, scientists from the University of Helsinki recently observed the gazing patterns of a group of 31 dogs – representing 13 breeds — as they were presented with a series of images.

Viewing portraits of dogs and both male and female humans demonstrating a range of expressions, researchers discovered that the dogs consistently looked first to the eyes as they assessed the emotional messages in the photos. After taking in the eyes, they found dogs then viewed the entire face, basing their perception on the complete expression conveyed.

Some faces, however, brought out a markedly different behavior in the dogs and researchers found when presented with images of a dog making a threatening expression, they spent time looking at the face, particularly the eyes.

When presented with threatening human faces, however, the dogs averted their eyes — a sign they want to please humans and have learned to show submission, researchers speculated.

Though dogs evaluate faces much like humans do, looking at the eyes, mouth and the interaction of the facial features to determine mood, the study shows differences in the ways dogs assess facial expressions between themselves and humans.

What’s more, they interpret faces in context and react according to the species at hand, responding differently to humans than other dogs

In light of this information, next time something around the house gets destroyed, remember that the tendency to avoid looking an angry human in the eyes is not a sign of doggy guilt, but rather respect — and maybe even a touch of sympathy for your loss.

Sharna Johnson is a writer who is always searching for ponies. You can reach her at:

[email protected].