Angela
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Part of the answer is that we bred them to do it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201802/how-do-dogs-recognize-human-faces
"Two separate lines of early research showed that face recognition is special. The first one looked at human beings and found that there is a region of the human brain which seems to be specifically designed to recognize human faces. That region is located in the temporal lobe of the brain which is an area located on the side of the brain at the bottom middle part of the cortex which would be behind, and slightly above your ears. The first evidence of the importance of this region came from patients who suffered damage to this part of the brain and developed prosopagnosia, which is a form of "face blindness". People with this problem have difficulty recognizing familiar faces and even their own face in a mirror, while other aspects of their mental functioning, such as the ability to recognize objects, is not affected."
"The second line of research involved measuring the activity of single neural cells in the temporal regions of the brain. In monkeys, it was found that there were some cells which were specifically tuned to respond when the animal was viewing a monkey face. When the research was extended to look at the same area in the brains of sheep, they found cells which responded specifically to typical sheep-shaped faces. There is even some research which shows that similar cells can be found in the corresponding region of the brain of crows, and these are tuned to respond when the crow looks at bird shaped faces."
"Scientists began to ask themselves "If behavioral tests show that dogs are so good at recognizing human faces and expressions is it possible that they might have additional face-tuned cells in their brains—not just cells tuned to dog faces but cells tuned to respond to human faces as well?""
"Actually getting dogs to participate in a fMRI based study is not easy. To be tested the dog is required to remain motionless in a confined space in the MRI device for a period of time. The dog must also ignore the many loud sounds made by the MRI's operation which includes the sounds of spinning gears, loud clanks, bangs and so forth, any of which might be expected to startle a dog and cause him to move. So a period of intensive training (which might involve months of working with the dogs) is required before you can actually collect data from them. In this case, seven dogs were trained to endure the fMRI measurements required by the study."
" When presented with human faces the area of the brain which responded most vigorously in the dogs was the ventral temporal cortex (the front part of the temporal cortex), and this area was relatively unresponsive to images of objects which were not faces. This roughly corresponds to the same region of the brain that is involved in the recognition of same species faces in the other animals that have been tested using single cell measures. So dogs are responding to human faces in the same region of the brain where they respond to dog faces.
Why should this be happening? One possibility is a process called co-evolution, which is where the evolution of one species affects the historical evolutionary changes of another. Since dogs have been evolving into a species which shares the human environment, becoming more efficient at responding to the people in that environment would be an adaptive advantage and recognizing faces would be one aspect of this.
Another possibility is that during the process of domestication of dogs which spanned some thousands of years, humans might have systematically selected and nurtured dogs which responded accurately to human faces and emotional expressions. This certainly would make communication between people and their dogs easier. The dogs which had this ability would be preferred, cared for and nurtured. While all of that selective breeding based on the dogs' behavior was going on it might well be the case that at the neurological level humans were unknowingly selecting dogs with brains that had specific mechanisms with the ability to recognize human faces in the same way that they might recognize the faces of animals of their own species. If so this would be an innate ability which does not require education or experience to show itself."
"So perhaps telling a novice dog trainer to keep smiling and avoid angry emotional expressions might be a reasonable bit of advice since it is likely that the dog is processing and interpreting their face. His brain certainly seems to have the apparatus to do so."
I completely agree with all of this.
I must also say the accompanying picture gave me quite a turn. This is what our new puppy is going to be like...minus the surgically altered ears. He's beautiful and loving, as this dog appears to be, but you certainly wouldn't want him to harbor angry feelings toward you.
(I still hope she's shorter than I am.) With animals, the carrot is the way to go...lots and lots of loving.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/canine-corner/201802/how-do-dogs-recognize-human-faces
"Two separate lines of early research showed that face recognition is special. The first one looked at human beings and found that there is a region of the human brain which seems to be specifically designed to recognize human faces. That region is located in the temporal lobe of the brain which is an area located on the side of the brain at the bottom middle part of the cortex which would be behind, and slightly above your ears. The first evidence of the importance of this region came from patients who suffered damage to this part of the brain and developed prosopagnosia, which is a form of "face blindness". People with this problem have difficulty recognizing familiar faces and even their own face in a mirror, while other aspects of their mental functioning, such as the ability to recognize objects, is not affected."
"The second line of research involved measuring the activity of single neural cells in the temporal regions of the brain. In monkeys, it was found that there were some cells which were specifically tuned to respond when the animal was viewing a monkey face. When the research was extended to look at the same area in the brains of sheep, they found cells which responded specifically to typical sheep-shaped faces. There is even some research which shows that similar cells can be found in the corresponding region of the brain of crows, and these are tuned to respond when the crow looks at bird shaped faces."
"Scientists began to ask themselves "If behavioral tests show that dogs are so good at recognizing human faces and expressions is it possible that they might have additional face-tuned cells in their brains—not just cells tuned to dog faces but cells tuned to respond to human faces as well?""
"Actually getting dogs to participate in a fMRI based study is not easy. To be tested the dog is required to remain motionless in a confined space in the MRI device for a period of time. The dog must also ignore the many loud sounds made by the MRI's operation which includes the sounds of spinning gears, loud clanks, bangs and so forth, any of which might be expected to startle a dog and cause him to move. So a period of intensive training (which might involve months of working with the dogs) is required before you can actually collect data from them. In this case, seven dogs were trained to endure the fMRI measurements required by the study."
" When presented with human faces the area of the brain which responded most vigorously in the dogs was the ventral temporal cortex (the front part of the temporal cortex), and this area was relatively unresponsive to images of objects which were not faces. This roughly corresponds to the same region of the brain that is involved in the recognition of same species faces in the other animals that have been tested using single cell measures. So dogs are responding to human faces in the same region of the brain where they respond to dog faces.
Why should this be happening? One possibility is a process called co-evolution, which is where the evolution of one species affects the historical evolutionary changes of another. Since dogs have been evolving into a species which shares the human environment, becoming more efficient at responding to the people in that environment would be an adaptive advantage and recognizing faces would be one aspect of this.
Another possibility is that during the process of domestication of dogs which spanned some thousands of years, humans might have systematically selected and nurtured dogs which responded accurately to human faces and emotional expressions. This certainly would make communication between people and their dogs easier. The dogs which had this ability would be preferred, cared for and nurtured. While all of that selective breeding based on the dogs' behavior was going on it might well be the case that at the neurological level humans were unknowingly selecting dogs with brains that had specific mechanisms with the ability to recognize human faces in the same way that they might recognize the faces of animals of their own species. If so this would be an innate ability which does not require education or experience to show itself."
"So perhaps telling a novice dog trainer to keep smiling and avoid angry emotional expressions might be a reasonable bit of advice since it is likely that the dog is processing and interpreting their face. His brain certainly seems to have the apparatus to do so."
I completely agree with all of this.
I must also say the accompanying picture gave me quite a turn. This is what our new puppy is going to be like...minus the surgically altered ears. He's beautiful and loving, as this dog appears to be, but you certainly wouldn't want him to harbor angry feelings toward you.
(I still hope she's shorter than I am.) With animals, the carrot is the way to go...lots and lots of loving.
