According to a recent study from Hungary, people apply the same emotional characteristics to the sounds that dogs make as they do to sounds made by humans.
According to a recent study from Hungary, people apply the same emotional characteristics to the sounds that dogs make as they do to sounds made by humans.
Researchers asked study subjects to rate whether non-verbal human sounds and dog vocalizations were positive or negative, along with how emotionally intense they felt the noises were.
The results of the study show that shorter noises were perceived as being more positive, while higher pitched vocalizations were perceived as being more intense than low pitched noises.
The authors of the study wrote that their data is “the first evidence of the use of the same basic acoustic rules in humans for the assessment of emotional valence and intensity in both human and dog vocalizations. Further comparative studies using vocalizations from a wide variety of species may reveal the existence of a common mammalian basis for emotion communication.”
Data from previous studies indicates that low-pitched short barks are thought to be more aggressive, and slow, higher pitched barks denote a positive response.
