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The Humintell Blog April 4, 2025

Dogs May Use Blinking To Bond With Other Dogs

Did you know? The subtle nonverbal exchange of blinking back at someone who blinks at you helps humans and primates bond. Now according to a new study, dogs may also use blinking as a form of connecting to other canines.

In their study entitled “If you blink at me, I’ll blink back. Domestic dogs’ feedback to conspecific visual cues“, researchers out of the University of Parme, “investigated the behavioral and physiological responses of 54 domestic dogs to videos of conspecifics performing blink”.

Research has already shown domestic dogs tend to blink more around other dogs. They also appear to blink to keep the peace with their canine companions—and humans as well—when tensions rise.

The Methodology

puppy-dog-eyesLead researcher Canori and her colleagues created a variety of 12-second videos of a terrier, a cocker spaniel, or a border collie looking at the camera. In some clips, the dogs were blinking, and in others, they weren’t.

A third set of videos showed the dogs licking their noses, a well-known gesture that can signal eagerness or frustration in dogs.

The researchers then edited the videos and strung them together into 71-second clips. In clips with blinking and nose licking, these movements occurred every 4 seconds throughout the clip.

The team then showed the videos on a large screen and in random order to each of 54 adult pet dogs of various breeds who had never interacted with the dogs in the videos.

Researchers outfitted the canine viewers with heart monitors to assess their emotional reactions and also filmed them to spot blinking and other behaviors.

The Results

A few of the dogs got bored and fell asleep but the rest blinked about 16% more on average when watching the other dog blinking than during the two other kinds of scenes.

They found that when dogs witnessed other dogs blinking, they were more likely to blink. They compared these habits to the other behaviors such as nose licking and remaining still and attentive.

Interestingly, only the blinking caused the mimicry effect. Experts suggests that this nonverbal behavior is similar to when we see others yawn and then yawn ourselves.

The researchers suggests that blinking has been a means to express non-aggressive intentions towards members of their own species.

Reciprocal blinking in dogs might help to:

  • Facilitate social bonds
  • Cope with frustration
  • Communicate non-aggressive intentions

Similar to yawning, researchers believe this behavior is related to emotion contagion; the phenomenon when someone’s emotions lead to or produce similar emotions to others.

Even if the blinking is purely reflexive, the results suggest dogs have evolved to use it in meaningful ways.

Researcher Francesconi notes the animals showed no signs of stress in their faces or heart rates while watching the videos.

“Blinking could be a way, for example, to signal, ‘I’m relaxed, and you can be, too.’”

The post Dogs May Use Blinking To Bond With Other Dogs first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

Filed Under: Emotion, Nonverbal Behavior, Science

The Humintell Blog February 24, 2025

Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Read Animal Emotions?

As technology advances, scientists from around the globe have been investigating the use of AI to help recognize animal pain signals.

Through computerized facial expression analysis, this AI technology can quickly and accurately recognize pain signals in animals. In some cases, AI is better at this task than some humans!

This AI technology has been used in animals from sheep to horses to cats.

An example includes the Intellipig System developed by scientists at the University of the West of England Bristol (UWE) and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).

Intellipig examines photos of pigs’ faces and notifies farmers if there are signs of pain, sickness, or emotional distress.

Facial Expressions in Animals

Scientists assess an animal’s level of pain by looking for telltale muscle movements around the eyes, ears, and other facial features. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems make similar judgments by measuring the distance between “landmarks” on the face (orange and teal dots).

Like humans, animals convey how they’re feeling through their facial expressions. In fact, humans share 38% of our facial movements with dogs, 34% with cats and 47% with primates and horses.

But, as an article in Science points out, “the anatomical similarities don’t mean we can read animals’ faces like those of fellow humans. So, researchers studying animal communication often infer what an animal is experiencing through context”.

An example of this is pain; researchers studying animals can induce mild discomfort or be cognizant of pain signals after an invasive procedure such as castration.

After spending countless hours observing the faces of animals in painful or stressful situations, scientists can then compare them against animals who are pain or stress-free.

As a result, scientists developed “grimace scales” which provide a measure of how much pain or stress an animal is experiencing based on movement of its facial muscles.

In addition, like the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) used on humans, experts have also become skilled at coding facial movements in animals (AnimalFACS).

Amazingly at present, the FACS system has been adapted into 8 different species and their manuals are freely accessible through the animalfacs.com website:

  • ChimpFACS: common chimpanzees
  • MaqFACE: rhesus macaques
  • GibbonFACS: hylobatid species
  • OrangFACS: orangutans
  • DogFACS: domestic dogs
  • CatFACS: cats
  • EquiFACS: domestic horses
  • CalliFACS: marmoset species

However, coding work is incredibly tedious, and human coders need 2 to 3 hours to code 30 seconds of video.

This is where AI comes in.

AI can do the same task almost instantaneously, but first it must be taught.

Teaching AI to Read Animal Faces

AI systems are becoming faster and more accurate than humans at determining whether an animal is in pain. That’s partly because they can identify the tiniest muscle movements and find new indicators of pain that humans are not even aware of.

At the University of Haifa, scientists Anna Zamansky and her team have been using AI to pinpoint the subtle signs of discomfort in animals’ faces.

There are many steps in teaching AI to read animal faces.

These steps include:

  1. AI learning to ID parts of the face crucial to creating expressions (this is done by manually flagging important parts of the face associated with specific muscle movements).
  2. Feeding AI a plethora of landmarked photos to teach it to find landmarks on its own.
  3. AI identifying specific facial expressions by analyzing distances between landmarks.
  4. Cross referencing expressions against grimace scales to determine signs of pain or distress.

Zamansky’s team trained their AI on photos of Labrador retrievers who were either eagerly anticipating a treat or were able to see the treat but were prevented from reaching it.

Their AI was able to successfully detect whether the dog was happy or frustrated 89% of the time.

The AI also successfully differentiated happy and frustrated horses in the same experiment.

Despite some limitations to their technology, Zamansky’s team is about to release an AI based app that will allow cat owners to scan their pets’ faces for 30 seconds and get easy to read messages.

The technology also extends to horses- researchers in the Netherlands have developed a similar app that scans resting horses’ faces and bodies to estimate their pain levels.

This app could potentially be used in equestrian competitions to improve animal welfare and fairness in the sport.

The post Can Artificial Intelligence (AI) Read Animal Emotions? first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

Filed Under: Emotion, Technology

The Humintell Blog January 29, 2025

Why Laughter is Good for the Soul and Your Health

A recent review published last year in the journal Plos One found that spontaneous laughter leads to health benefits.

The article combined the results from eight separate studies to answer the question: Does spontaneous laughter reduce cortisol levels?

What is Cortisol?

Cortisol is an essential hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue in your body.

It’s produced by the adrenal glans and plays many important roles, including: maintaining blood pressure, supporting immune function, boosting metabolism, and helping you stay awake.

When you are under stress, your body produces more cortisol; therefore, it is a good measure of stress levels. Too much cortisol can lead to weight gain, digestive problems, muscle weakness, depression, and anxiety.


Universal Laughter and Deception


Laughter as Medicine

Since the 1970s, medical experts have learned that laughter can boost pain tolerance and improve overall well-being.

This recent meta-analysis identified eight studies in which participants were encouraged to laugh by watching a funny video, working with a laughter therapist, or participating in a self-administered laughter program.

Some of the studies measured participants’ cortisol levels before and after a laughter session and others included control groups, which measured cortisol levels of participants without laughter.

Combining the data, researchers found that cortisol levels fell by 31.9% for people who participated in laughter interventions — and even a single laughter session led to a 36.7% reduction in cortisol. It didn’t matter how long participants laughed; any laughter led to reductions in cortisol.

Their analysis concluded that “spontaneous laughter is associated with greater reduction in cortisol levels as compared with usual activities, suggesting laughter as a potential adjunctive medical therapy to improve well-being.”

Other Health Benefits of Laughter

universal laughter and deceptionThis recent review builds on previous research that has found that laughter can improve your overall health, well-being, and life satisfaction.

Here are few studies and benefits of laughter:

  • A 2018 review found that laughter and humor interventions appear to enhance well-being in older adults.
  • Laughter is also found to improve mental health and bolster personal development.
  • Evidence suggests that laughter helps improve cardiovascular health.
  • Laughter can decrease pain perception. One study found that laughter therapy reduced pain scores of people living with terminal cancer by nearly half.

The take-home message: Laughter is good medicine, and there is data to prove it. So do your best to find opportunities to laugh and giggle as often as possible.

The post Why Laughter is Good for the Soul and Your Health first appeared on Humintell | Master the Art of Reading Body Language.

Filed Under: Nonverbal Behavior, Science

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