Our canine companions are like us in so many ways, and new research from Japan suggests that just like we do, dogs use a range of facial expressions to convey specific emotions, including raising their eyebrows in reaction to certain sights, the Daily Mail reports.
Animal behavior experts from Azabu University in Sagamihara, Japan used high-speed cameras attached to the faces of dogs to chart the changes in their facial movements when faced with different scenarios, such as seeing their owners or a new person for the first time. Researchers placed 12 dogs in a room divided by curtains that would open briefly to show dogs what was on the other side. The dogs were divided from the object or person by a partition.
Colored stickers were placed on their faces, and the cameras picked up the various movements they made while their expressions changed, depending on what they saw on the other side of the curtain, be it a toy, their owner, a stranger or an item they did not like.
The study, published in the journal Behavioral Processes, garnered some surprising results, though if you're a dog owner, you may have been clued in to some of the "secrets" of dog expressions already!
When the study dogs were reunited with their owners, they tended to move their eyebrows up for around half a second after initially spotting them. When introduced to a stranger, they moved their left ear back slightly.
"It is difficult to explain this difference in movement between the ears and eyebrows," Dr. Miho Nagasawa told The Telegraph. "Dogs' ears are prominent features used to convey emotional expression, therefore our results suggest that dogs were more cautious toward unfamiliar people. In contrast, eyebrow movement might indicate a visible response whereby dogs attempted to look at their owners more intently."
Researchers found that whenever dogs saw something behind the curtain, they moved their eyebrows upwards, but far more so when they saw their owners, particularly on the left side of their face. However, researchers noted that the changes in different sides of their faces also suggested a conflict on emotions: joy at seeing their owner, but sadness at not being able to reach them through the partition placed between them.
Could these findings reflect a natural empathy in dogs that they have evolved over their thousands of years as domesticated animals? Researchers concluded that key parts of a dog's brain controls its emotions.
"One explanation for this result is that presentation of the owner elicited both negative and positive emotions," Dr. Nagasawa explained. "A negative response might appear...perhaps because the dogs could not approach and touch their owners despite seeing them through the partitions.
"Canids are highly social and communicate using an abundant array of facial expressions. These communication methods might play an important role in their communication with humans."
Earlier this year, U.S. psychologists concluded that dog owners were able to detect emotions from the facial expressions of their pets, including happy, sad, surprised and frightened.
Click here to see photos from the study that used sensors attached to the faces of dogs to chart their facial movements and expressions.
