Comparative Brain Imaging Reveals Analogous and Divergent Patterns of Species and Face Sensitivity in Humans and Dogs

Bunford, Nóra; Hernández-Pérez, Raúl; Farkas, Eszter Borbála; Cuaya, Laura V.; Szabó, Dóra; Szabó, Ádám; Gácsi, Márta; Miklósi, Ádám; Andics, Attila

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.2800-19.2020

Cited by 34 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…First and foremost, in comparison to the baseline, we found significant overall activation in two large bilateral clusters comprising the gyrus ectomarginalis, gyrus splenialis, gyrus sylvius, gyrus suprasylvius, and the gyrus ectosylvius rostralis. These activations indicate that the dogs’ brains are responsive to our visual scene presentation (e.g., Bunford et al. 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Karl

Sladky

Lamm

et al. 2021

Cerebral Cortex Communications

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We have limited knowledge on how dogs perceive humans and their actions. Various researchers investigated how they process human facial expressions, but their brain responses to complex social scenarios remain unclear. While undergoing fMRI, we exposed pet dogs to videos showing positive social and neutral non-social interactions between their caregivers and another conspecific. Our main interest was how the dogs responded to their caregivers (compared to a stranger) engaging in a pleasant interaction with another dog that could be seen as social rival. We hypothesized that the dogs would show activation increases in limbic areas such as the amygdala, hypothalamus and insula, and likely show higher attention and arousal during the positive caregiver-dog interaction. When contrasting the social with the non-social interaction, we found increased activations in the left amygdala and the insular cortex. Crucially, the dogs’ hypothalamus showed strongest activation when the caregiver engaged in a positive social interaction. These findings indicate that dogs are sensitive to social affective human-dog interactions, and likely show higher valence attribution and arousal in a situation possibly perceived as a potential threat to their caregiver bonds. Our study provides a first window into the neural correlates of social and emotional processing in dogs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Karl

Sladky

Lamm

et al. 2021

Cerebral Cortex Communications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Few studies have examined the neural processes underlying dogs' perception of real‐world objects. Indeed, most behavioral studies of canine visual perception of objects, species, or faces rely on two‐dimensional (2D) pictures or movies (Albuquerque et al, 2016; Autier‐Derian et al, 2013; Barber et al, 2016; Bunford et al, 2020; Huber et al, 2013; Muller et al, 2015; Pitteri et al, 2014; Szabo et al, 2020; Thompkins et al, 2018; Wallis et al, 2017). Similarly, recent fMRI studies have used 2D stimuli to identify regions of the dog brain selective for processing human and nonhuman faces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The mouth matters most: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of how dogs perceive inanimate objects

Prichard

Chhibber

Athanassiades

et al. 2021

J of Comparative Neurology

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The perception and representation of objects in the world are foundational to all animals. The relative importance of objects' physical properties versus how the objects are interacted with continues to be debated. Neural evidence in humans and nonhuman primates suggests animate-inanimate and face-body dimensions of objects are represented in the temporal cortex. However, because primates have opposable thumbs and interact with objects in similar ways, the question remains as to whether this similarity represents the evolution of a common cognitive process or whether it reflects a similarity of physical interaction. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in dogs to test whether the type of interaction affects object processing in an animal that interacts primarily with its mouth. In Study 1, we identified object-processing regions of cortex by having dogs passively view movies of faces and objects. In Study 2, dogs were trained to interact with two new objects with either the mouth or the paw. Then, we measured responsivity in the object regions to the presentation of these objects. Mouth-objects elicited significantly greater activity in object regions than paw-objects. Mouth-objects were also associated with activity in somatosensory cortex, suggesting dogs were anticipating mouthing interactions. These findings suggest that object perception in dogs is affected by how dogs expect to interact with familiar objects.

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“…For instance, Gergely and collaborators ( 2019 ) showed that dogs exposed to a conspecific vocalization pay more attention to pictures of dogs than of humans, a species dogs were highly familiar with. Moreover, a recent functional neuroimaging study revealed greater activation of visual cortical areas in dogs, when exposed to videos of conspecific faces than when exposed to human faces, suggesting the existence of species-specific processing mechanisms (Bunford et al 2020 ). Taken together, these findings suggest dogs do possess the ability to visually discriminate dogs from another familiar species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

I know a dog when I see one: dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize dogs from videos

et al. 2021

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Several aspects of dogs’ visual and social cognition have been explored using bi-dimensional representations of other dogs. It remains unclear, however, if dogs do recognize as dogs the stimuli depicted in such representations, especially with regard to videos. To test this, 32 pet dogs took part in a cross-modal violation of expectancy experiment, during which dogs were shown videos of either a dog and that of an unfamiliar animal, paired with either the sound of a dog barking or of an unfamiliar vocalization. While stimuli were being presented, dogs paid higher attention to the exit region of the presentation area, when the visual stimulus represented a dog than when it represented an unfamiliar species. After exposure to the stimuli, dogs’ attention to different parts of the presentation area depended on the specific combination of visual and auditory stimuli. Of relevance, dogs paid less attention to the central part of the presentation area and more to the entrance area after being exposed to the barking and dog video pair, than when either was paired with an unfamiliar stimulus. These results indicate dogs were surprised by the latter pairings, not by the former, and were interested in where the barking and dog pair came from, implying recognition of the two stimuli as belonging to a conspecific. The study represents the first demonstration that dogs can recognize other conspecifics in videos.

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Comparative Brain Imaging Reveals Analogous and Divergent Patterns of Species and Face Sensitivity in Humans and Dogs

Abstract: Number of figures and tables (separately): 4 and 1 (not inlcuding extended data figures and tables

Cited by 34 publications

References 84 publications

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

Neural Responses of Pet Dogs Witnessing Their Caregiver’s Positive Interactions with a Conspecific: An fMRI Study

The mouth matters most: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of how dogs perceive inanimate objects

I know a dog when I see one: dogs (Canis familiaris) recognize dogs from videos

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