We conduct comparative cognitive research on dog-human interaction utilizing interdisciplinary, non-invasive methods: questionnaires and surveys, behavioral research, physiological and biobehavioral measurements. The main funding of the research is from the Research Council of Finland. This news piece of JYU explains the project "Human's Best Friend" in more detail. Our ongoing research tackles issues of human-dog social interaction in varying situations, the information conveyed by dog activity and autonomic nervous system, dog and human gaze tracking during observation of emotional expressions, and the effect of olfactory stimuli in the dog experience of the world. The research is conducted in collaboration with e.g. University of Helsinki; Aalto University School of Science; and University of Eastern Finland in Finland; Azabu University, Japan; and University of Plymouth, UK. We disseminate our research results mostly in Finnish within press releases, but also in this social media profile.
