Dogs know how we feel, they perceive emotional smells and this affects their behavior. This was revealed by a research conducted by the Federico II University and reported in the London newspaper The Times
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Dogs know how we feel, they perceive emotional smells and this affects their behavior. This was revealed by a research conducted by the Federico II University and reported in the London newspaper The Times.
The study led by Professor Biagio D'Aniello of the Department of Biology, in collaboration with prof. Massimo Aria of the Department of Economics and Statistics and prof. Gün Semin of the William James Center for Research in Barcelona has shown that olfactory cues are important because they allow dogs to recognize certain human emotions, such as fear and happiness. A kind of empathy.
In reality, according to the researchers the perception of these emotional mechanisms is unconscious but causes very specific physiological responses.
During the study, the emotions of the fear and happiness in some human volunteers. Samples of their sweat were collected with axillary swabs. The samples were then made to sniff the dogs in a room where the dog handler and a stranger were present at the same time.
The results showed that the dogs' behavior and cardiac activation differed according to theirs perception of chemical signals fear and happiness, present in tampons. In particular, when dogs smelled the chemical signals of fear they had greater cardiac activation and also a greater presence of stress, compared to when they were exposed to the signals of happiness. The latter also induced the dogs to have more contact even with the stranger present in the room.
What does it mean? The perception of happiness caused dogs to open up even to a stranger. There would be some kind of mechanism empathetic between dogs and men activated by emotional chemical signals. Stress behaviors and cardiac activation occurring in response to fear perception could be real indicators of this human-induced emotional state of fear in the dog. Likewise, the dog's more relaxed behavior linked to the perception of human happiness may have induced the same emotional state in the animals.
"These results show that not only dogs are able to perceive human emotions in the absence of visual or acoustic indications, but also that their behaviors, as well as their physiological states, are conditioned by human emotional states" explain researchers.
This is the first study to detect the impact of the chemical signals of human emotional states on the dog's behavior towards people. More subsequent studies will be needed to investigate these phenomena and the effect of other emotions on dogs.
The scientific explanation of what many of us have already experienced. Dogs perceive our moods, our fears but also our joy, sharing it.
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Francesca Mancuso
