WEBVTT - Science has given us another reason to love dogs 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:08.039 Which dog owners among us haven't wondered about our pets? 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.480 What are they thinking? Do they like me? Oh, God, 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.840 are they judging me? Well, a new study has revealed 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:19.160 that dogs are even better at reading our emotions than chimpanzees, 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:24.440 who are our closest evolutionary relative. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.400 and you're listening to Morning Edition from The Age and 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:32.160 the Sydney Morning Herald. Today, science reporter Angus Dalton on 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.440 how scientists reached this conclusion and what we may want 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.320 to know to help our dogs lead their best lives. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:46.080 It's August the 17th. Angus, welcome back to the podcast. 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:47.280 Thanks for having me, Sam. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.120 Okay, let's dig in. Because scientists in Hungary and Mexico, 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:55.200 they conducted a brain scanning study of dogs brains. And 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:57.720 their findings were just published last week in the journal 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.480 I science. So tell us, what have they discovered? 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.740 Yes. So scientists scanned the brains of 14 dogs and 0:01:04.740 --> 0:01:07.740 found yet another reason to love our four legged friends, 0:01:07.740 --> 0:01:11.140 which is that they are really good at reading human 0:01:11.140 --> 0:01:14.459 emotion or facial expressions, which might not come as a 0:01:14.459 --> 0:01:17.380 surprise to anyone who's a dog lover. They do seem 0:01:17.380 --> 0:01:19.380 really in tune with us. They kind of seem to 0:01:19.420 --> 0:01:21.940 match our mood a lot of the time. Uh, but 0:01:21.940 --> 0:01:23.620 we actually don't really have a lot of data as 0:01:23.620 --> 0:01:26.020 to what's actually happening in a dog's brain. So this 0:01:26.020 --> 0:01:30.580 is really, really cool research. The study actually analyzed the 0:01:30.580 --> 0:01:33.259 brain activity of dogs while they were being shown images 0:01:33.260 --> 0:01:37.899 of human faces that were happy, sad, scared, angry, or neutral. 0:01:38.100 --> 0:01:41.420 And the areas of their brain that lit up were 0:01:41.420 --> 0:01:44.979 actually quite different for most of these emotions. So like 0:01:44.980 --> 0:01:47.100 I said, we sort of knew that they react uniquely 0:01:47.100 --> 0:01:50.860 to happiness and excitement, and they also make decisions based 0:01:50.860 --> 0:01:52.740 on that. So there was one study that showed like, 0:01:52.740 --> 0:01:54.940 if you have two boxes next to each other and 0:01:54.940 --> 0:01:57.740 a human reacts excited and happy towards one box and 0:01:57.740 --> 0:02:00.820 neutrally towards another, the dog will prefer the box that 0:02:00.820 --> 0:02:04.520 you've acted happily towards And other studies have shown that 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:08.720 dogs actually respond better to facial expressions when they are 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.280 expressed by people who are the same gender as their 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.799 primary caregiver, which sort of seems to indicate that they 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.000 start to learn more about their owners and sort of 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.560 tune in to them on sort of this emotional level 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.799 and learn how to read them even better. But this 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.000 study really added more evidence that dogs react uniquely to, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.679 as I said, human happiness, which really lights up their 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.880 brain like a Christmas tree, in particular, the reward center 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.120 of the brain. So the authors speculate that human happiness 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.360 and smiles is kind of like giving a dog a 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.080 treat or a toy, which is so adorable. What this 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.760 study really showed is that happy human faces triggered activity 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.120 in the temporal cortex, which is an area of the 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:50.240 brain that recognizes faces and processes, emotional cues, and the 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.400 caudate nucleus, which handles rewards and motivation. And the researchers 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:56.880 said this was a really interesting part of the study, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.240 and really suggested that happy human faces, in particular, may 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.480 have emotional significance for dogs, and that, taken together with 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.579 other studies. One of the main takeaways is that dogs 0:03:06.580 --> 0:03:10.060 interpret human happiness, even the smiles of strangers like in 0:03:10.060 --> 0:03:13.620 this study, as a reward. So the researchers actually said 0:03:13.620 --> 0:03:16.380 that we can reward our dogs with treats, but also 0:03:16.380 --> 0:03:19.540 with happiness, and that the science now says that we 0:03:19.540 --> 0:03:21.859 have to smile at every dog on the street because 0:03:21.860 --> 0:03:24.260 it makes them happy. That's just what science says now. 0:03:24.260 --> 0:03:26.380 And the other really key part is that they can 0:03:26.380 --> 0:03:29.540 discern the difference between a range of negative emotions, which 0:03:29.540 --> 0:03:31.780 we don't actually have a lot of other data on. 0:03:32.020 --> 0:03:34.100 So yeah, as I said, any this might come as 0:03:34.100 --> 0:03:36.300 a surprise to any dog lover, but if you really 0:03:36.300 --> 0:03:38.340 stop to think about it, it's pretty amazing that these, 0:03:38.380 --> 0:03:41.220 these species that are so different to us have come 0:03:41.220 --> 0:03:44.260 to learn our emotions, learn our facial expressions to the 0:03:44.260 --> 0:03:46.380 degree that the authors actually say they do it better 0:03:46.380 --> 0:03:49.900 than our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees. 0:03:49.940 --> 0:03:53.540 Which is absolutely incredible. And what did we learn, if anything, 0:03:53.580 --> 0:03:56.860 about the dogs and how they respond to negative emotions 0:03:56.860 --> 0:03:59.380 like fear and anger or sadness? 0:03:59.820 --> 0:04:03.580 Yeah. So when they were shown these negative emotions, for 0:04:03.580 --> 0:04:07.170 the most part, they lit up different regions of the brain. 0:04:07.170 --> 0:04:09.530 I won't try and pronounce the regions of the brain 0:04:09.530 --> 0:04:11.890 because it's just like a long sort of spell of Latin. 0:04:11.890 --> 0:04:15.450 But the key part was that they they reacted differently. Right. 0:04:15.450 --> 0:04:17.730 So they seem to maybe struggle a little bit more 0:04:17.730 --> 0:04:20.770 to tell the difference between sadness and anger, at least 0:04:20.770 --> 0:04:25.090 in this study, based just on images of people's emotions. 0:04:25.250 --> 0:04:28.370 But they did, for the most part, seem to differentiate 0:04:28.370 --> 0:04:34.570 between these emotions really well. And they particularly reacted strongly, though, 0:04:34.610 --> 0:04:39.370 to both fear and anger over sadness. And that kind 0:04:39.410 --> 0:04:42.490 of makes sense because if a nearby human is scared, 0:04:42.490 --> 0:04:45.130 it makes sense evolutionarily for a dog to be aware 0:04:45.130 --> 0:04:47.170 of that. And if a human is scared, it may 0:04:47.210 --> 0:04:49.690 indicate that there's a threat nearby for the dog as well. 0:04:49.690 --> 0:04:52.610 And if a human is angry, that can obviously also 0:04:52.610 --> 0:04:56.450 have consequences for a dog. The angry person can represent 0:04:56.450 --> 0:04:58.490 a direct threat to a dog. So it's really important 0:04:58.490 --> 0:05:00.890 for a dog evolutionarily to be in tune with that 0:05:00.890 --> 0:05:04.730 as well. Sadness is a yeah, not as strong sort 0:05:04.730 --> 0:05:06.910 of reactions in the brain, But, you know, a lot 0:05:06.910 --> 0:05:08.670 of people have this experience when they say the dog 0:05:08.670 --> 0:05:10.190 comes up to them and sort of gives them your 0:05:10.190 --> 0:05:12.670 puppy dog eye and sort of snuggle up. So maybe 0:05:12.710 --> 0:05:14.670 we need more research into that. And it's important to, 0:05:14.710 --> 0:05:17.109 to remember as well, the dogs were only being showed 0:05:17.110 --> 0:05:20.110 images and dogs tune in to so much more of that. 0:05:20.110 --> 0:05:22.710 In the real world, they are driven by things like 0:05:22.750 --> 0:05:27.150 tone of voice, your body language, and particularly smell dogs. 0:05:27.310 --> 0:05:29.430 Where we live in a visual world, dogs live in 0:05:29.430 --> 0:05:32.110 a smell world. So there's other research showing they really 0:05:32.110 --> 0:05:34.030 pick up on things like the odor of fear and 0:05:34.029 --> 0:05:36.750 the odor of anxiety. So we are missing those sensory 0:05:36.750 --> 0:05:41.070 pieces in this study. But what it is indicating is 0:05:41.270 --> 0:05:44.590 on a brain level, they really seem to know what 0:05:44.589 --> 0:05:46.109 we're feeling as well as thinking. 0:05:49.750 --> 0:05:50.710 After the break. 0:05:51.190 --> 0:05:55.510 They painstakingly trained these dogs to sit still in a 0:05:55.510 --> 0:05:58.349 sphinx position in an MRI machine, with their little jaws 0:05:58.390 --> 0:06:00.110 sort of sitting on a chin rest. 0:06:05.790 --> 0:06:07.729 Can you tell us a little bit about how scientists 0:06:07.770 --> 0:06:11.450 actually conducted this study because, you know, I think you 0:06:11.450 --> 0:06:13.570 and I probably both and some of the listeners, I'm 0:06:13.570 --> 0:06:17.130 sure know humans who find MRI machines tricky, you know, 0:06:17.170 --> 0:06:19.450 stress that they might, you know, do a big exhale 0:06:19.450 --> 0:06:21.570 and their body might move and it's going to mess 0:06:21.570 --> 0:06:25.530 things up. So how did they get the dogs to cooperate? 0:06:26.130 --> 0:06:30.850 This part is so cool. So the researchers basically just stalked, uh, 0:06:30.890 --> 0:06:33.930 local dog parks and looked out for dogs that seemed 0:06:33.930 --> 0:06:37.289 calm and well trained, approached the owners, and then asked 0:06:37.290 --> 0:06:39.930 if they'd be willing to be part of this study, basically. 0:06:39.930 --> 0:06:42.250 So they recruited. Yeah, about 14 dogs. Like I said, 0:06:42.250 --> 0:06:44.690 most of them were border collies. There was a Labrador, 0:06:44.770 --> 0:06:47.050 a mutt, and a couple of golden retrievers in there. 0:06:47.210 --> 0:06:50.570 And then over the course of several days and 20 0:06:50.650 --> 0:06:55.770 training sessions, they painstakingly trained these dogs to sit still 0:06:55.770 --> 0:06:58.570 in a sphinx position in an MRI machine, with their 0:06:58.570 --> 0:07:00.770 little jaws sort of sitting on a chin rest. And 0:07:00.770 --> 0:07:04.890 they were obviously rewarded copiously with treats and play for 0:07:04.890 --> 0:07:07.529 staying still. And they built up from just five seconds 0:07:07.529 --> 0:07:10.790 to a full three minutes. And it's pretty extraordinary because 0:07:10.790 --> 0:07:14.190 if the dogs moved more than three millimetres during any 0:07:14.190 --> 0:07:18.150 one scan, it would have rendered that data unusable. So 0:07:18.430 --> 0:07:20.550 it sort of goes to show why this data is 0:07:20.550 --> 0:07:24.470 so rare. It takes a lot of patience and time 0:07:24.470 --> 0:07:28.590 training these animals to stay still while they're awake in 0:07:28.590 --> 0:07:31.710 an MRI machine. So that training is what allowed the 0:07:31.710 --> 0:07:34.470 dogs to stay still in an MRI machine, which was 0:07:34.470 --> 0:07:37.830 a pretty amazing feat. And then the scientists could start 0:07:37.830 --> 0:07:40.590 showing them these images of human faces and do the 0:07:40.590 --> 0:07:41.510 actual study. 0:07:41.550 --> 0:07:43.590 I love that, just more data, if we needed it, 0:07:43.590 --> 0:07:45.830 that dogs are better than us. Like we knew that already. 0:07:45.830 --> 0:07:48.350 But I know, I know, I know, but it's nice 0:07:48.350 --> 0:07:48.710 to see. 0:07:48.710 --> 0:07:50.390 It spelled out on a brain scan. 0:07:50.430 --> 0:07:53.510 Exactly. And I wanted to ask you about something that 0:07:53.510 --> 0:07:56.230 Doctor Tiffany Howell. She's a senior research fellow at La 0:07:56.230 --> 0:07:59.350 Trobe University. What she told you? Now, she wasn't involved 0:07:59.350 --> 0:08:02.070 in this study, but she had a really interesting, I thought, 0:08:02.070 --> 0:08:05.190 interpretation of it, which was about, you know, that we 0:08:05.190 --> 0:08:07.670 actually can't read our dogs sometimes as well as they 0:08:07.670 --> 0:08:10.010 can read us. So tell us, I guess, what she 0:08:10.010 --> 0:08:13.330 told you about what we think dogs are feeling like. 0:08:13.330 --> 0:08:15.530 We think they feel guilty, right when they when they 0:08:15.530 --> 0:08:17.929 get that sheepish look and they've destroyed a shoe or something. 0:08:17.930 --> 0:08:19.690 But we're not right, are we? 0:08:19.730 --> 0:08:21.970 Angus a lot of the time, no. Like, yeah, it's 0:08:21.970 --> 0:08:23.770 kind of an irony, right? That dogs seem to be 0:08:23.770 --> 0:08:25.570 really good at reading our emotions, but a lot of 0:08:25.570 --> 0:08:29.010 the time we misinterpret their behavior. So the classic example is, 0:08:29.010 --> 0:08:31.489 as you said, the guilty look like if they've taught 0:08:31.490 --> 0:08:34.210 apart a toilet roll or destroyed a shoe, you'll often 0:08:34.210 --> 0:08:36.770 get that sort of slinking look where they'll hit you 0:08:36.770 --> 0:08:38.970 with the big eyes, and they'll sort of hunch over 0:08:38.970 --> 0:08:41.250 a little bit and act what we read as guilty. 0:08:41.250 --> 0:08:43.770 But research has showed that they don't actually really feeling guilty. 0:08:43.809 --> 0:08:47.970 What they're doing is interpreting that, that we're angry and acting, 0:08:48.010 --> 0:08:51.890 acting submissive to try and avoid punishment. So they're kind 0:08:51.890 --> 0:08:53.890 of playing us in that way. And a lot of 0:08:53.890 --> 0:08:56.210 the times in those situations, they're actually probably a bit 0:08:56.210 --> 0:08:59.010 scared as well rather than guilty. So there's a sort 0:08:59.010 --> 0:09:02.209 of welfare element to that as well. But they do 0:09:02.250 --> 0:09:05.770 though seem to get jealous. There's been studies where scientists 0:09:05.770 --> 0:09:09.449 will get dog owners to interact with a bucket and 0:09:09.450 --> 0:09:11.550 be like, oh my God, hey, and like interact with 0:09:11.550 --> 0:09:14.190 this bucket and their dog is nearby and doesn't really care. 0:09:14.190 --> 0:09:17.670 But if you replace that bucket with another dog, suddenly 0:09:17.670 --> 0:09:19.830 that dog is straining and trying to get over there 0:09:19.830 --> 0:09:21.750 and being like, why are you paying attention to something 0:09:21.750 --> 0:09:24.390 that's not me? Again, it's kind of makes sense evolutionarily, 0:09:24.429 --> 0:09:27.710 like dog owners are their source of food and safety 0:09:27.710 --> 0:09:31.429 and comfort. So if you see another animal moving in 0:09:31.429 --> 0:09:34.429 on that and maybe trying to capitalize on your owner, 0:09:34.510 --> 0:09:37.750 then it's evolutionarily expedient that you try and get back 0:09:37.750 --> 0:09:40.110 in there and try and outcompete that dog for cuteness 0:09:40.110 --> 0:09:42.070 and make sure that your owner is looking after you. 0:09:42.070 --> 0:09:43.950 And the one other thing I thought was really funny 0:09:43.950 --> 0:09:45.790 was one of the researchers sent me a link to 0:09:45.830 --> 0:09:48.950 a video of this study where they were testing what's 0:09:48.950 --> 0:09:51.310 called the Lassie effect, which is the idea that dogs 0:09:51.309 --> 0:09:55.190 will rescue us when we are in strife. Right. And 0:09:55.190 --> 0:09:58.110 there are lots of anecdotal stories about this, you know, 0:09:58.150 --> 0:10:01.670 dogs traveling for miles to to alert the town that 0:10:01.670 --> 0:10:04.310 a child has fallen into a ditch or something like that. 0:10:04.309 --> 0:10:07.350 So the scientists actually studied this, and they got owners 0:10:07.350 --> 0:10:09.790 to come into a room with their dogs, and they'd 0:10:09.790 --> 0:10:13.260 rigged up this bookcase to fall onto the owners, and 0:10:13.260 --> 0:10:16.179 then the owners would pretend to be squashed and be like, ah, help! 0:10:16.179 --> 0:10:19.060 I'm stuck, I'm stuck. And for most of the time, 0:10:19.059 --> 0:10:22.060 the dogs could not give a flying Fido if their 0:10:22.059 --> 0:10:24.860 owners were crushed under the bookcase and in distress, they 0:10:24.860 --> 0:10:27.220 would just keep roaming around the room and looking for treats. 0:10:27.220 --> 0:10:31.100 So kind of disproved the Lassie effect in that way. So, 0:10:31.140 --> 0:10:32.699 you know, it shows that not all of our dogs 0:10:32.700 --> 0:10:35.099 have that amazing rescue gene in them, clearly. 0:10:35.100 --> 0:10:37.980 Oh my God. Well, that's a bit reassuring because then maybe, 0:10:38.020 --> 0:10:40.540 you know, maybe dogs aren't better than us. Maybe. Maybe 0:10:40.540 --> 0:10:44.260 that boosts my self-esteem a bit there, Angus. Now, just 0:10:44.260 --> 0:10:46.820 to wrap up, I wanted to ask you about a 0:10:46.820 --> 0:10:50.500 tip that doctor Mia Cobb told you about how we 0:10:50.500 --> 0:10:53.740 can make our dogs lives better. She's an animal welfare 0:10:53.780 --> 0:10:56.820 scientist and dog expert. What can we do, Angus? 0:10:57.380 --> 0:10:59.340 Yeah, so it kind of goes to this point that, 0:10:59.380 --> 0:11:01.420 you know, this study was in some ways limited because 0:11:01.420 --> 0:11:04.339 it was only relying on visuals. And dogs are primarily 0:11:04.380 --> 0:11:08.300 smell driven. And what you can really do to make 0:11:08.300 --> 0:11:11.020 your dog's life better is to realize that they live 0:11:11.020 --> 0:11:13.800 in that smell driven world and slow down on the 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.000 walks and let them sniff. Because when we go for 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.160 a bushwalk, for example, we're looking for those visual nice things. 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.439 We're looking at flowers, we're hiking to the lookout, and 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.679 we're looking at a beautiful mountain view for a dog 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.920 that's a telegraph pole covered in we, you know, that's 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.280 what this scientist compared, you know, being able to smell 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.160 a really funky patch of grass is to a dog, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.959 a beautiful, stunning view because they just get so much 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.079 cool information from that patch of grass. So a lot 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:41.640 of the time people are trying to get their steps 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.720 up and jogging, and maybe that's okay, but what you 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.120 can do is just maybe for one walk a day, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.200 really slow down, let your dog sniff. And research shows 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.160 that dogs that are allowed to sniff on their walks 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.720 are much happier, their brains are healthier, and they feel 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.079 a lot safer and calmer at home as well. So 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:01.360 it's really worth doing. 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.480 That is super sweet. Angus. I do have one actually. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.760 Last question. Do we know why all of these studies 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.080 about dogs are coming out now? Like, is there any 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:11.400 particular reason? 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.640 I don't know. I mean, what we do know in 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.100 a place like Australia is that dog ownership is really increasing. 0:12:17.100 --> 0:12:20.699 I think at least half of all households now have 0:12:20.700 --> 0:12:24.060 a dog within them. So man's best friend is only 0:12:24.059 --> 0:12:27.260 becoming closer to the human race. And I think that 0:12:27.260 --> 0:12:30.260 means that we become ever more curious about these animals 0:12:30.260 --> 0:12:33.179 that have become such intrinsic parts of our lives after 0:12:33.420 --> 0:12:36.340 really co-evolving with us for the last 14,000 years. 0:12:40.059 --> 0:12:43.260 That's incredible. Thank you so much, Angus, as always, for 0:12:43.260 --> 0:12:43.900 your time. 0:12:44.100 --> 0:12:44.860 Anytime. 0:12:54.260 --> 0:12:58.620 Today's episode was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer 0:12:58.620 --> 0:13:02.220 is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa 0:13:02.220 --> 0:13:06.180 Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow 0:13:06.179 --> 0:13:08.500 the Morning Edition and leave a review for us on 0:13:08.500 --> 0:13:11.340 Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.