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Study: Some dogs may be able to read your feelings on your face
Posted
August 15, 2026
Views
967
Likes
156
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7
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16.86%
August 15, 2026
967
156
7
16.86%
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0:54Now PlayingA study in the journal "iScience" suggests dogs may be able to read human emotions by looking at people’s faces.
Previous studies have shown that dogs can broadly interpret human emotions like happiness or sadness. This study looked at how well dogs can sense more subtle human feelings, like the difference between anger and fear or happiness and neutrality. Researchers trained dogs to sit still while they examined their brain activity through an MRI and showed them pictures of humans faces. The tests showed that the dogs registered different brain activity for these different emotions.
Researchers used 14 dogs for this experiment. They point out that not all dogs may have this sophisticated emotional intelligence.
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Host: Ryland Barton/NPR
Reporter: Katia Riddle/NPR
Producer: Zayrha Rodriguez/NPR
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