Dogs can distinguish between emotions in a human face, study shows

BERLIN, Aug 11 : A peek inside dogs' brains revealed man's best friend can distinguish emotions in people's faces, researchers at the University of Vienna have found, providing what they said was the first ever evidence of such an ability. In the study, researchers used machine learning to analyse brain scans of 12 dogs as the animals viewed images of human faces displaying different emotions, the university said in a press release on Tuesday. Researchers found that brain regions linked to higher cognitive functions and reward processing — the temporal cortex and caudate nucleus — were activated only by images of happy strangers. Anger, fear and sadness did not trigger those regions, according to the study, published in Cell Press journal iScience on Monday. However, when the researchers l