Dogs can infer implicit information from human emotional expressions

Abstract

The ability to infer emotional states and their wider consequences requires the establishment of relationships between the emotional display and subsequent actions. These abilities, together with the use of emotional information from others in social decision making, are cognitively demanding and require inferential skills that extend beyond the immediate perception of the current behaviour of another individual. They may include predictions of the significance of the emotional states being expressed. These abilities were previously believed to be exclusive to primates. In this study, we presented adult domestic dogs with a social interaction between two unfamiliar people, which could be positive, negative or neutral. After passively witnessing the actors engaging silently with each other and with the environment, dogs were given the opportunity to approach a food resource that varied in accessibility. We found that the available emotional information was more relevant than the motivation of the actors (i.e. giving something or receiving something) in predicting the dogs’ responses. Thus, dogs were able to access implicit information from the actors’ emotional states and appropriately use the affective information to make context-dependent decisions. The findings demonstrate that a non-human animal can actively acquire information from emotional expressions, infer some form of emotional state and use this functionally to make decisions.

How Do Dogs Behave When Presented with Situations of Different Emotional Valences?

“…For this study, we used 75 dogs ( Table S1 ) from the sample of Albuquerque and colleagues (2021) [ 18 ], which had been randomised for emotional valence, role of the actor (giver or receiver of the object) and side. Five of the subjects had to be excluded due to camera limitations.…”

“…Other studies involving emotionally salient cues, such as body posture and visual contact, have demonstrated dogs’ discrimination between a friendly and threatening unfamiliar person by showing different reactions to the associated approaches (e.g., [ 17 ]). Our team’s recent work [ 18 ] has revealed that dogs can infer emotional states of humans since, when they are exposed to actors exhibiting facial expressions of different emotional valences, they can use this information in a functional way to make decisions [ 18 ]. This requires cognitive abilities thought, until recently, to be exclusive to primates [ 18 ].…”

“…Our team’s recent work [ 18 ] has revealed that dogs can infer emotional states of humans since, when they are exposed to actors exhibiting facial expressions of different emotional valences, they can use this information in a functional way to make decisions [ 18 ]. This requires cognitive abilities thought, until recently, to be exclusive to primates [ 18 ]. The latter experiment consisted of two actors interacting silently while exchanging a neutral object and reacting in three possible manners: with a positive (happy), negative (angry) or neutral facial expression.…”

“…However, many aspects of behaviour, such as responses of agitation, willingness to explore the environment and interest associated with each condition, were not evaluated. The aim of the current study was to use the videos generated by the previous work [ 18 ] to test the hypothesis that dogs show differential behaviours in response to different emotionally charged situations. We did so by examining more closely how dogs behave in situations involving humans expressing different emotional valences (positive, negative and neutral).…”

Comunicação como ferramenta para o comportamento pró-social em cães

“…Esta percepção emocional nesta relação humano-cão pode ser funcional e adaptativa, já que existem evidências que os cães tomam decisões ecológicas relevantes baseadas no estado emocional da pessoa que ele interage. Por exemplo, cães preferem receber comida de pessoas que sorriram ao invés de receber comida de pessoas que demonstraram raiva ou com uma postura neutra (Albuquerque et al, 2021). Em outro estudo que examinou a transferência de emoções entre espécies por meio de odores corporais (quimiossinais), foi encontrado que os cães preferem se aproximar de estranhos quando sentem um cheiro de "odor feliz" em comparação com "odor de medo" ou "odor de controle" (D'Aniello et al, 2018).…”