Dogs Read Emotions As Well As Humans Do

Did you know that dogs can tell when you’re sad, happy, lonely, worried, or in any other state of emotion?

Recent discoveries point in favor of the strongly supported theory that both dogs and humans can sense each other’s emotional displays. A new study conducted by part of the Hungarian Academy of Scientists tested 11 dogs and 22 humans for response to emotional stimuli. They put them through a battery of tests which were audio recordings of dogs and humans. So they basically experienced sounds such as laughing, crying, and whining.

Each participant tended to react better to sounds of their own respective species, but both dogs and humans were able to discern what the sounds meant. A brain scanner also revealed that the area of the brain that reacted was related to the sound being played, and it further showed that humans and canines use the same neurological mechanisms to process social info. Pretty intriguing finding, huh?