Age and experience affect the interpretation of aggressive dog facial expressions
Several brain areas are involved in the processing of facial emotions, and structures in these areas appear to continue maturation into adolescence.
Participants evaluated images of dog emotional expressions
The study by researchers at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland and at the University of Vienna in Austria investigated how 4-and 6-year-old children evaluated dog emotional expressions from dog faces compared to adults, and how having a dog in the family affected in different age groups’ evaluations. Participants were shown images of happy, neutral, and aggressive dog and human facial expressions from the computer screen and participants rated how positive or negative the emotional state in the image was and how high the emotional arousal was.
Evaluation was affected by respondent age and a companion dog
The results showed that both the respondent’s age and experience of living with a dog affected to the ratings.
“Especially, aggressive dog expressions were rated incorrectly by 4-year-olds, and they rated aggressive dogs as significantly more positive and lower in arousal than adults”, says the postdoctoral researcher, Heini Törnqvist.
In addition, participants who had no experience in living with a companion dog, rated aggressive dog expressions as more positive. Instead, happy dog expressions were rated similarly between age groups regardless of dog experience.
The development of the social mind in children affects the results
Similar results have been obtained also in previous studies, and the result is important, because it specifically relates to the interpretation of aggressive dog facial expressions, where small children are significantly worse than adults. Already 6-year-old children’s evaluations were substantially closer to adults’ evaluations; hence recognition of emotional expressions can be related to brain maturation involved in facial emotion recognition and development of understanding of emotions in toddlers. The results were published on 26.7.2023 in science journal PLOS ONE.
For more information, please contact:
- Postdoctoral Researcher Heini Törnqvist, email: heini.m.j.tornqvist@jyu.fi
- Academy Researcher Miiamaaria V. Kujala, email: miiamaaria.v.kujala@jyu.fi
Link to the original research article: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0288137
