Researchers use MRI to show that dogs can distinguish between different negative human facial expressions, including fear, sadness and anger. In a study published in iScience on Aug. 7, scientists scan dogs’ brains as the animals view images showing multiple human emotions.
The study identifies distinct patterns of brain activity linked to specific facial expressions. One reported finding is that dogs process smiles in a particular brain region. For negative expressions, the scans provide evidence that the dogs do not treat all unhappy faces as the same, instead showing differences between fear and sadness or anger.
Across outlets, the findings are presented as building on prior behavioral work. Earlier experiments suggested dogs can interpret some human facial cues, but often compared only one positive emotion against one negative. The new imaging approach is described as offering clearer biological evidence that dogs can separate multiple kinds of unhappy facial expressions rather than relying on a single general negative signal.
