Dogs In Synch With Owners Emotions According To Study

If you believe your dog is able to tell whether you are happy or sad it turns out you may well be right.

According to a new study which was published in Current Biology, Dogs are sensitive to emotional cues present in the human voice. Researchers think that the part of the brain which processes voice and sounds in both humans and dogs evolved at the same time 100 million years ago when both species shared a common anscestor.

“Dogs and humans share a similar social environment. Our findings suggest that they also use similar brain mechanisms to process social information. This may support the successfulness of vocal communication between the two species.” Attila Andics, of MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Hungary, said in a press release.

For the purposes of their study the researchers trained 11 dogs to sit completely still for a functional MRI scan. They then analyzed the brain activity of both humans and dogs as they listened to different human and dog sounds ranging from playful barking to crying and laughing.

Both human and dog brains respond most strongly to sounds produced by their own species however both brains processed emotionally charged sounds in very similar ways.

There were some important differences as well with dogs responding more strongly to non vocal noises in comparison to humans.

The researchers think the study may result in a better understand of why dogs are so in synch with the emotions of their owners.

“This method offers a totally new way of investigating neural processing in dogs. At last we begin to understand how our best friend is looking at us and navigating in our social environment.” Mr. Andics said.