Your pet dog will recognize you every time you upload a “selfie”.
Researchers from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Helsinki led by Outi Vaino found out that dogs can recognize faces of familiar human beings when shown within a series of images. Before, scientists thought that this skill is only possessed by humans and other primates but this study suggests that our canine friends have this ability as well.
The study examined whether the dogs can differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar faces in a series of images. The researchers then analyzed the gazing behavior displayed by the dogs when looking at familiar and unfamiliar images.
Results showed that the dogs did not only recognize faces familiar to them but they also understood the information presented in the picture and its semantic meaning. The dogs tend to gaze at familiar subjects for a longer period of time than they gazed at unfamiliar images.
The methodology of the experiment was done by training the dogs to lie down and face the screen. Once the dog is relaxed, it will be shown a variety of images showing human faces, other dogs, and things around the house. Some of the human images are those of the dog’s owner while some are pictures of people that the dog has never seen before. Pictures of dogs belonging in the same family were also shown along with images of dogs that the subject has never seen before.
"This study shows that the gazing behavior of dogs is not only following the physical properties of images, but also the information presented in the image and its semantic meaning," Vainio wrote.
The study was published in the journal Animal Cognition. It was the first research to look into facial recognition ability of dogs by examining eye movement patterns.
