In a replication of a 2005 Hungarian study, researchers led by Karine Silva assessed whether Portuguese listeners could identify the emotional context of dog barks. The study, published in Animal Behavior and Cognition, found that participants were generally able to categorize barks associated with territorial defense and separation distress above chance level, indicating a cross-cultural consistency in recognizing canine emotional signals.
The study involved both dog owners and non-owners, and analyzed how individuals interpreted recordings of barks from various scenarios such as a dog being left alone or reacting to a stranger. Portuguese listeners, like their Hungarian counterparts, tended to assign appropriate emotional labels to the barks, although with slightly less accuracy. Interestingly, the researchers noted that women attributed higher levels of despair across all bark recordings regardless of context, and dog owners were more accurate in interpreting the barks than non-owners.
These findings highlight the human capacity to understand emotional cues in nonhuman vocalizations, lending support to the idea that vocal emotion recognition may be universal among mammals. At the same time, the results suggest that factors such as culture, gender, and pet ownership can shape individual perception and interpretation of animal emotions.
Overall, the study emphasizes the communicative depth of dog vocalizations and encourages further exploration into how interpersonal experience and cultural background influence our ability to empathize with animals. The implications are especially relevant for training, animal welfare, and strengthening human–dog relationships through improved emotional attunement.
Source: Karine Silva, T. Faragó, P. Pongrácz, P. Romeiro, M. Lima, and L. Sousa. 2021-05-01. “Humans’ Ability to Assess Emotion in Dog Barks Only Slightly Affected by their Country of Residence, a Replication of Pongracz et al. (2005) in a Portuguese Sample.” Animal Behavior and Cognition. https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.08.02.04.2021
