In a 2024 double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, researchers led by Péter Pongrácz explored how dog barks affect human listeners and whether intranasal oxytocin alters perception. The study focused on the dual communicative function of barking: as an emotional signal and an alarm cue.
Forty healthy young adult males received either oxytocin or placebo treatment before listening to sequences of dog barks specifically designed to convey various emotional states. Participants then rated perceived emotions (such as fear, aggression, and happiness) and how annoying the barks sounded.
Results showed that oxytocin increased sensitivity to aggressive emotional content, particularly in barks with a lower fundamental frequency. These participants rated such barks as more aggressive than those in the placebo group. However, oxytocin also reduced annoyance levels when participants heard noisy, high-pitched, or atonal barks, which are often most irritating to human ears.
This study presents novel evidence for two pathways through which dog barks affect humans: emotional empathy and attention-grabbing acoustics. Oxytocin appears to regulate both by intensifying emotion recognition while dampening irritation from sound characteristics. These findings also hint at how hormonal or neurochemical influences could shape how we emotionally engage with our companion animals.
Source: P. Pongrácz, C. A. Lugosi, L. Szávai, A. Gengeliczky, N. Jégh-Czinege, T. Faragó. “Alarm or emotion? Intranasal oxytocin helps determine information conveyed by dog barks for adult male human listeners.” BMC Ecology and Evolution, 2024-01-14. Volume 24.
