Experience has shown: dogs change facial expressions to communicate with humans

Yes, those big puppy eyes that your dog builds for you are not an accident at all. Scientists claim that dogs do have control over their facial expressions.

photo: google.comResearchers have noticed that when a person pays attention to a dog, it uses many more expressions than when it is alone. So they raise their eyebrows and make big eyes, they are just for us. Such a conclusion rejects the assumption that dog muzzle movements reflect only internal emotions. It’s so much more! It is a way to communicate with a person. Bridget Waller, lead researcher and professor of evolutionary psychology, says: “Facial expression is often thought of as something uncontrollable and fixed on certain internal experiences. So, it is widely believed that dogs are not responsible for the emotions reflected in their faces. This scientific study combines several studies on the relationship between humans and dogs, including scientific papers that suggest that dogs understand the words we use and the intonation with which we convey them. Scientists recorded on camera the facial expressions of 24 dogs that reacted to the actions of a person standing first facing them, and then with his back, treating them to a treat, and also when he did not give anything. 

photo: google.comThe videos were then carefully analyzed. The result of the experiment was the following: more expressions of the muzzle were noticed when the person was facing the dogs. In particular, they showed their tongues more often and raised their eyebrows. As for the treats, they absolutely did not affect anything. This means that the expression of the muzzle in dogs does not change at all with joy at the sight of a treat. 

photo: google.comWaller explains: “Our goal was to determine if the muscles of the face work more actively when the dog sees both a person and a treat. This would help to understand whether dogs are able to manipulate people and make eyes so that they get more treats. But in the end, after the experiment, we did not notice anything like that. Thus, the study shows that a dog’s facial expression is not just a reflection of internal emotions. It would be more correct to say that this is the mechanism of communication. However, the team of researchers could not determine for sure if the dogs are doing it thoughtlessly in an attempt to get attention, or if there is a deeper connection between facial expressions and their thoughts.

photo: google.com“We came to the conclusion that most likely the expression of the muzzle appears during communication directly with a person, and not with other dogs,” Waller said. – And this gives us the opportunity to look a little into the mechanism of turning once wild dogs into domestic animals. They have developed the ability to communicate with a person. ”However, the scientists emphasized that the study did not find any explanation for what exactly dogs want to convey to us by changing their facial expressions, and it is not clear whether they do this on purpose or involuntarily attract our attention.