Do animals recognize faces?

Do animals recognise faces? This’s a conundrum that cannot be answered in boolean. While we can’t say that all animals remember faces, we cannot generalise animals into not recognising faces at all either.

The question, however, can be answered in relative terms.

First, let us take dogs and cats, the most stereotypical pets in any household. In a 2005 article published by Lomber and Cornwell, it is stated that when shown the faces of their owner and a stranger, dogs’ percentage of choosing their owners’ faces was 88.2%, while that of cats’ was 54.5%.

Now don’t be overwhelmed, dog owners. Dogs might not actually be as excited at the sight of your face as you wish they were. Dr Attila Andics and his colleagues studied 30 humans and 20 dogs. The dogs and humans were made to lay in an MRI machine, while they were played a number of short videos (one with a human face; another with the back of a human’s head; similarly, one with a dog’s face and another with the back of a dog’s head).

As one would expect, the analysis of the brain scans showed that the visual areas of the human brain lit up more at the sight of a human face than the back of the head. Also, they showed increased activities when the video played was that of humans rather than dogs’.

Likewise, while dogs’ brains showed a greater response to dog faces, the response to human faces was not very significant. This suggests that dogs’ brains are not really excited by human faces. Scientists still debate over if dogs’ brains have a specific face recognition system.

Now, don’t worry about your dog not knowing you. In an experiment performed by the University of Lincoln, a dog was placed alone in a room. Then, his owner and a stranger entered the room through different doors, crossed paths and exited through different doors. The dogs seemed to focus longer on their owners than the stranger. Also, once they left, the dogs waited by the door through which their owner exited. Experiments have also shown that dogs are indeed sensitive to change in facial expressions.

University of Lincoln’s research suggests that even birds are capable of facial recognition. They use it to differentiate their friends and foes in humans. What’s more surprising is the fact that archerfish, which lacks a region that other animals use to recognise faces, can be trained to recognise human faces with surprising accuracy.

Similarly, wasps not only recognise faces but also remember them. They employ this skill to understand who’s already beaten whom and to remember who’s the boss, i.e. hierarchy.

Now, what do you think? Do animals recognise faces? Ever had an experience with your pet that could add to this topic? Share it with us in the comments below.