Dogs Capable of Recognizing Familiar Faces in Images

Like humans dogs too can differentiate people by  facial features, according to University of Helsinki researchers.

Up until now, it was believed that only humans had the innate capability to recognize people by their distinguishing facial features. However, a new study, the first of its kind, found that dogs too have this skill, according to a press release.

For the study, Professor Outi Vainio at the University of Helsinki looked into whether dogs that were not trained to perceive faces were able to recognize faces in photographs and if they looked at familiar and strange faces differently.

"Dogs were trained to lie still during the image presentation and to perform the task independently. Dogs seemed to experience the task rewarding, because they were very eager to participate" said professor Vainio. "Dogs' eye movements were measured while they watched facial images of familiar humans and dogs (e.g. dog's owner and another dog from the same family) being displayed on the computer screen. As a comparison, the dogs were shown facial images from dogs and humans that the dogs had never met."

Researchers found that dogs were able to recognize faces in images shown to them. Then tended to stare at dog images longer than they stared at human images, irrespective of whether the dog was familiar to them or not. Researchers also noted that when a face was familiar to dogs, the animal stared at it for a longer period of time and scanned it more thoroughly.

Studies have established that humans process upside-down images in a different way than normal facial images. In this study researchers found that dogs looked at upright faces as long as inverted faces. However, when upright images were shown to them, they gazed at the eye area for a longer period of them, an observation made in humans too.

"This study shows that the gazing behavior of dogs is not only following the physical properties of images, but also the information presented in the image and its semantic meaning, according to the statement. "Dogs are able to see faces in the images and they differentiate familiar and strange faces from each other. These results indicate that dogs might have facial recognition skills, similar to humans."