Cited by 347Human-Animal Interaction StudiesFace Recognition and PerceptionPrimate Behavior and Ecology

Dogs recognize dog and human emotions

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Albuquerque, Natalia, Guo, Kun, Wilkinson, Anna, Savalli, Carine, Otta, Emma, Mills, Daniel·2016·Biology Letters

Abstract

The perception of emotional expressions allows animals to evaluate the social intentions and motivations of each other. This usually takes place within species; however, in the case of domestic dogs, it might be advantageous to recognize the emotions of humans as well as other dogs. In this sense, the combination of visual and auditory cues to categorize others' emotions facilitates the information processing and indicates high-level cognitive representations. Using a cross-modal preferential looking paradigm, we presented dogs with either human or dog faces with different emotional valences (happy/playful versus angry/aggressive) paired with a single vocalization from the same individual with either a positive or negative valence or Brownian noise. Dogs looked significantly longer at the face whose expression was congruent to the valence of vocalization, for both conspecifics and heterospecifics, an ability previously known only in humans. These results demonstrate that dogs can extract and integrate bimodal sensory emotional information, and discriminate between positive and negative emotions from both humans and dogs.

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Crossref · 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0883

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  • Dogs and horses are able to recognize and appropriately respond to human emotions by interpreting visual and acoustic messages.

    “Indeed, dogs and horses are able to recognize and appropriately respond to human emotions by interpreting visual and acoustic messages (Albuquerque et al., 2016; Merola, Marshall‐Pescini, D'Aniello, & Prato‐Previde, 2013; Morisaki, Takaoka, & Fujita, 2009; Nagasawa, Murai, Mogi, & Kikusui, 2011; Smith, Proops, Grounds, Wathan, & McComb, 2016).”

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Authors
Albuquerque, N., Guo, K., Wilkinson, A., Savalli, C., Otta, E., & Mills, D.
Affiliations
  • Universidade de São Paulo (BR)
  • University of Lincoln (GB)
  • Universidade Federal de São Paulo (BR)
Corresponding author
Guo, Kun
Venue
Biology Letters
Published
2016-01
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
20150883
ISSN
  • 1744-9561 (ISSN-L)
  • 1744-957X
OpenAlex
W2244360783
Cited by
347
References
26
Citations by year
2026: 31 · 2025: 32 · 2024: 41 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 41 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 10
FWCI
23.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Biology Letters (publishedVersion)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Lincoln Repository (University of Lincoln) (acceptedVersion)
  • Americanae (AECID Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Brazil Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (N/A)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Human-Animal Interaction Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
Keywords
dogs, emotion recognition, emotions, cross-modal integration, facial expressions, vocalizations, emotional valence, social cognition, interspecies communication, preferential looking
MeSH terms
Anger, Animals, Cues, Discrimination, Psychological, Dogs, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Happiness, Humans, Male, Speech, Vocalization, Animal

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