Dogs Turn Left To Emotional Stimuli

[corvus]

Dogs turn left to emotional stimuli

Marcello Siniscalchia,∗, Raffaella Sassoa, Anna Maria Pepea, Giorgio Vallortigarab, Angelo Quarantaa

a Department of Animal Production, University of Bari, Strada Prov.le per Casamassima, km 3, 70010 Valenzano, Italy b Centre for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Corso Bettini 31, 38068 Rovereto, Italy

abstract

During feeding behaviour, dogs were suddenly presented with 2D stimuli depicting the silhouette of a dog, a cat or a snake simultaneously into the left and right visual hemifields. A bias to turn the head towards the left rather than the right side was observed with the cat and snake stimulus but not with the dog stimulus. Latencies to react following stimulus presentation were lower for left than for right head turning, whereas times needed to resume feeding behaviour were higher after left rather than after right head turning. When stimuli were presented only to the left or right visual hemifields, dogs proved to be more responsive to left side presentation, irrespective of the type of stimulus. However, cat and snake stimuli produced shorter latencies to react and longer times to resume feeding following left rather than right monocular visual hemifield presentation. Results demonstrate striking lateralization in dogs, with the right side of the brain more responsive to threatening and alarming stimuli. Possible implications for animal welfare are discussed.

The authors say in the discussion that we should consider which direction we approach animals in potentially stressful situations from, but don't say if they think we should approach a frightened animal from the left to allow them to check quickly what's coming at them or from the right to perhaps provide a less emotional stimuli? I think perhaps the best way to use this knowledge is simply to monitor the directions our dogs are looking in and use that as an indicator of emotional arousal. The study doesn't address which way a dog is biased towards looking for positive emotional stimuli, only negative.

[Erny]

It's interesting, isn't it? I have to leave to work with some dogs right now, otherwise I'd find and add the link to the study on tail wagging, which suggests similar emotional differences if the tail wag is a bit more to the left side than the right and vice versa.