Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here. If you're like me, you
Speaker 1: love dogs, possibly more than people. Some days, their warm
Speaker 1: eyes and doggie grins have me wrapped around their fluffy
Speaker 1: pupper tails, and according to new research from the University
Speaker 1: of Portsmouth's Dog Cognition Center, dogs deliberately make more facial
Speaker 1: expressions when we're watching them, and it could be their
Speaker 1: way to communicate with us. The study was led by
Speaker 1: Dr Julienne Kaminsky and published in a seventeen issue of
Speaker 1: Scientific Reports. Kaminski and her research team came to their
Speaker 1: conclusion after watching twenty four different dogs, all family pets
Speaker 1: of varying breeds and ages. Each dog was filmed individually
Speaker 1: in a room with a person who went through various
Speaker 1: scenarios including looking at the dog, looking away from the dog,
Speaker 1: and giving the dog food. The scientists then studied the
Speaker 1: dog's facial expressions using the Dog Facial Action Coding System
Speaker 1: or Dog FACTS, which is a scientific tool for coding
Speaker 1: canines facial movements. It was adapted from the FACTS system
Speaker 1: created for humans back in night. Kaminsky and her team
Speaker 1: discovered that each dog made animated faces when the person
Speaker 1: in the room was looking at it, including raising its
Speaker 1: eyebrows and sticking out its tongue a much more than
Speaker 1: when the person's back was turned. In a press statement,
Speaker 1: Dr Kaminsky said the findings appear to support evidence that
Speaker 1: dogs are sensitive to humans attention and that expressions are
Speaker 1: potentially active attempts to communicate, not simple emotional displays. Most
Speaker 1: surprisingly is that even the presence of food didn't influence
Speaker 1: the dogs as much as human affection. Kaminski said, we
Speaker 1: knew domestic dogs paid attention to how attentive a human is.
Speaker 1: In a previous study, we found, for example, the dogs
Speaker 1: stole food more often when the human's eyes were closed
Speaker 1: or when they had their back turned. In another study,
Speaker 1: we found dogs follow the gaze of a human if
Speaker 1: the human first establishes eye contact with the dog, so
Speaker 1: the dog knows that the gaze shift is erected at them.
Speaker 1: Kabinski says it's possible that the expressions of dogs have
Speaker 1: changed as they've become more domesticated, but the study does
Speaker 1: have its limits. Twenty four canines makes for a small
Speaker 1: study sample, so it's likely that more dogs should be
Speaker 1: studied to confirm these findings, which sounds like an excellent
Speaker 1: research session to me. Today's episode was written by Sarah
Speaker 1: Glime and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this
Speaker 1: and lots of other tail wagging topics, visit our home planet,
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of
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