Researchers made volunteers do public speaking and math on the spot, then showed them a calming video. Then, using sweat samples, glass jars and food bowls, they examined the emotional impact on dogs.
Study participant Freddie sits next to a jar with an odor sample, then approaches a bowl to check for a treat.New research out of the United Kingdom suggests that the smell of human stress affects dogs’ emotions as well as their decisions, leading them to make more pessimistic choices., was the result of a partnership between the University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the British charity Medical Detection Dogs.
“Being a species that we've lived and co-evolved with for thousands of years, it kind of makes sense that dogs would learn to read our emotions because it might be helpful to them to know if there's something threatening in the environment or some stressor that they need to be aware of,” Parr-Cortes explains.To find out, researchers first put human volunteers — who, importantly, were not known to the participating pups — through a stress test.
Parr-Cortes says that setup is based on the famous test in which a person is shown a partially filled glass and asked to discern if it’s half full or half empty.“Their response might change depending on their mood at that moment, or maybe their outlook in life at that time,” she explains. This is where the sweaty cloths come in. The dogs’ owners, acting as handlers, would open up a jar with one of the rags and have the dog sniff it, before a bowl was put in front of them. Researchers ran the test multiple times, with both stressed and relaxed smells and in different orders and the bowls in all three locations.
To her, the study confirms that dogs might be less likely to think a reward is coming if they know their human is in a bad mood — which makes sense.
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