Ask any dog owner whether their canine companion understands them and the answer will probably be yes.
Now, psychology researchers at the University of Otago are running experiments to find if dogs really can detect human emotional messages.
Over the past 15 months, Associate Professor Ted Ruffman and a teamof students have put 90 Dunedin dogs, of all shapes, sizes and breeds, through their paces.
Some have been shown recorded images of babies laughing, crying and babbling, while others have been given the same verbal instruction from humans displaying either happy or stern expressions.
The dogs' responses indicated they could indeed differentiate a happy human from an angry or sad one and a laugh from a cry, Professor Ruffman said. "We know dogs are very good at picking up on human gestures ... and it seems they are very good at picking up on human emotions too."
The dogs who watched the crying baby responded differently to those who saw the laughing or babbling child, he said. They strained to get behind the TV screen to "find" the baby, cocked their heads, and showed signs of concern.
The studies were designed to find out whether dogs had a natural empathetic response to human emotion, or whether their reactions were based on the positive reinforcements they received from humans as a result.
