A New Study Shows that ‘Puppy Dog Eyes’ Are an Actual Thing
Perhaps those puppy dog eyes are what drew you in when adopting Fido. Well, you’re not alone, because researchers have found that that adorable look is one thing dogs use to influence humans.
A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences established a remarkable thing about dogs’ behavior patterns—their ability to read and use human communication in ways that other animals cannot. The scientists examined facial muscles in dogs versus wolves and found that dogs raise their eyebrows to communicate with people: a physical skill that dogs have developed with small muscles around their eyes over 33,000 years of domestication. This allows them to raise their inner eyebrows—thus making their eyes appear larger, more childlike—while wolves possess hardly any comparable muscles.
These slight eyebrow raises manipulates us into feeling an emotional, nurturing response—not unlike what happens between a parent and infant. Similar research claims that eye contact is a crucial component to enhancing dog-human social interaction and helps them understand when they should be paying attention to commands and creates a sense of attachment.
Dr. Juliane Kaminski, who led the research at the University of Portsmouth, said, “The findings suggest that expressive eyebrows in dogs may be a result of humans’ unconscious preferences that influenced selection during domestication. When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to look after them.” Dr. Kaminski’s previous research showed dogs moved their eyebrows significantly more when humans were looking at them compared to when they weren’t.
The fact that dogs can influence us by simply adjusting their facial expression is a pretty big deal, especially since another study from Learning & Behavior said dogs are not as smart as we make them out to be. If anything, our four-legged friends have identified and evolved the traits they need to capture our attention. Our dogs aren’t just creating a bond with humans, their presence also affects our happiness, too.
Adam Hartstone-Rose, co-author and anatomist at North Carolina State University, said, “ These muscles are so thin that you can literally see through them—and yet the movement that they allow seems to have such a powerful effect that it appears to have been under substantial evolutionary pressure. It is really remarkable that these simple differences in facial expression may have helped define the relationship between early dogs and humans.”