Study: Your Dog Probably Recognizes Your Face — Even In Photos -
Your dog may be able to recognize your face in a photo.
That’s the latest from the University of Helsinki, which published the results of its study in the journal Animal Cognition this December.
According to Science News Daily, the researchers had dogs look at facial images of familiar humans (such as their owner) and other dogs in the family, as well as unfamiliar humans and dogs they’d never encountered. Then the researchers measured the dogs’ eye movements as they viewed the photos.
Scientists say that while the dogs viewed the faces of other dogs for longer than the human faces (backing up findings from previous studies), the canines studied also studied the faces of familiar humans for longer than unfamiliar ones.
Additionally, when the dogs were given upside-down photos of faces to view, they viewed those in much the same way that humans do. While the pups stared at the inverted pictures for just as long, they tended to focus more on the eye area of the upright photos.
“Familiar faces and eyes attracted more fixations than the strange ones, suggesting that dogs are likely to recognize conspecific [relating to the same species] and human faces in photographs,” the study’s authors conclude.
It’s just more proof that “dogs are people, too.”
Read more -
Your dog may be able to recognize your face in a photo.
That’s the latest from the University of Helsinki, which published the results of its study in the journal Animal Cognition this December.
According to Science News Daily, the researchers had dogs look at facial images of familiar humans (such as their owner) and other dogs in the family, as well as unfamiliar humans and dogs they’d never encountered. Then the researchers measured the dogs’ eye movements as they viewed the photos.
Scientists say that while the dogs viewed the faces of other dogs for longer than the human faces (backing up findings from previous studies), the canines studied also studied the faces of familiar humans for longer than unfamiliar ones.
Additionally, when the dogs were given upside-down photos of faces to view, they viewed those in much the same way that humans do. While the pups stared at the inverted pictures for just as long, they tended to focus more on the eye area of the upright photos.
“Familiar faces and eyes attracted more fixations than the strange ones, suggesting that dogs are likely to recognize conspecific [relating to the same species] and human faces in photographs,” the study’s authors conclude.
It’s just more proof that “dogs are people, too.”
Read more -
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