In order to gain novel insights into human social cognition, this study researched dogs’ facial communication and sociability towards humans with the help of a newly explored concept termed the...Show moreIn order to gain novel insights into human social cognition, this study researched dogs’ facial communication and sociability towards humans with the help of a newly explored concept termed the dark iris ring. The dark iris ring is a discolouration in the iris around the pupil of a canine eye, which is believed to be a paedomorphic trait developed during selective breeding processes by improving social communication with humans. The study took it upon itself to answer the questions of whether the dark iris ring classifies as such a paedomorphism, whether modern breeds have a higher expression of iris discolouration than ancient breeds and whether they are, hence, evaluated as “more cute”. Three hypotheses were formulated, stating that (1) dark iris rings are paedomorphisms that (2) are more present in modern dog breeds when controlling for contrast values and that (3) modern dog breeds are, therefore, evaluated as “more cute”. In order to test these hypotheses, eye measurements of N = 36 canine images, including both ancient and modern breeds, were taken and cuteness ratings were gathered in an online survey administered to N = 106 participants. Eye measurements and cuteness ratings were compared respectively. The confirmatory analyses show the results to be non-significant, not supporting either notion of the three hypotheses. Even though our findings provide too little evidence that dark iris rings developed as paedomorphisms due to an elicitation of caregiving responses and the appraisal of cuteness by humans, we urge future research to continue the examination of dark iris rings.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
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Perceiving and correctly interpreting emotional expressions is one of the most important abilities for social animals’ communication. It determines the majority of social interactions, group...Show morePerceiving and correctly interpreting emotional expressions is one of the most important abilities for social animals’ communication. It determines the majority of social interactions, group dynamics, and cooperation, being highly relevant for an individual’s survival. With the evolutionary implications of understanding emotions, and the phylogenetical closeness between humans and non-human primates, the core mechanisms of this ability have been hypothesized to be shared across closely related species. In the current study, we aimed to find homologies in human processing of different species’ facial expressions using eye-tracking. Introducing a prime-target paradigm, we tested the influences on human’s attention elicited by priming with differently valenced emotional stimuli depicting human and chimpanzee faces. We demonstrated a shift of attention towards the conspecific emotional target picture that was congruent with the valence depicted on the primer picture. We did not find this effect to occur with heterospecific primers, although based on post-hoc valence and arousal ratings, the emotional expressions in chimpanzees were interpreted correctly. Explanations of this finding, as well as implications about the involvement of related emotion processing mechanisms between humans and chimpanzees are discussed. Additional systematic investigations of emotional expressions across species are needed to unravel whether the emotion representation mechanisms can extend to process other species’ faces. Through cross-species investigations, we continue to address the gap of a shared evolutionary ancestry between humans and other animals to ultimately answer the question of “Where emotions come from?”.Show less
