Your Dog Loves You. Your Face? Not So Much
Hungarian researchers want to reassure the human companions of dogs that they do care about you.
However, they don't particularly care for your face. In fact, CNN reports dogs can't even distinguish the front of your head from the back of it.
Instead, dogs use more information from smell or larger parts of the body to identify people.
Despite lacking specialized neural machinery to process faces, dogs nevertheless excel at eye contact, following gaze, and reading emotions from faces.
The researchers say that as dogs domesticated, they learned that reading facial cues meant survival, even though they lacked a specific region in the brain to do so.
However, they don't particularly care for your face. In fact, CNN reports dogs can't even distinguish the front of your head from the back of it.
Instead, dogs use more information from smell or larger parts of the body to identify people.
Despite lacking specialized neural machinery to process faces, dogs nevertheless excel at eye contact, following gaze, and reading emotions from faces.
The researchers say that as dogs domesticated, they learned that reading facial cues meant survival, even though they lacked a specific region in the brain to do so.