If you have a dog or hang out with dogs for any meaningful time, you’ve probably encountered the

Any dog owner would tell you that their canine companions are attuned to their humans' emotional state and respond accordingly. Scientists have performed fMRI scans on dogs and identified a specific brain region that processes happy human facial expresses, like a smile, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience. They also found that dogs can tell the difference between negative facial expressions, specifically anger, sadness, and fear.

“Humans are really good at picking up small details on the face, and so are dogs,” said co-author Raúl Hernández-Pérez of the University of Vienna. “This makes dogs very interesting. By studying their brains, we can understand what adaptations have developed to support their remarkable social and emotional understanding of humans.”

Prior behavioral studies have shown that dogs are sensitive to emotion in human faces. Dogs will, for example, choose a box their human has identified with a happy expression over one the human treats with fear or disgust. Past fMRI studies found that an area in the canine left temporal cortex showed a stronger response to human faces compared to dog faces, as well as a greater response in the caudate, hippocampus, and amygdala to human faces showing emotion versus neutral faces.

Read full article

Comments

© Laura V. Cuaya/CC BY-SA

Any dog owner would tell you that their canine companions are attuned to their humans' emotional state and respond accordingly. Scientists have performed fMRI scans on dogs and identified a specific brain region that processes happy human facial expresses, like a smile, according to a new paper published in the journal iScience. They also found that dogs can tell the difference between negative facial expressions, specifically anger, sadness, and fear.

“Humans are really good at picking up small details on the face, and so are dogs,” said co-author Raúl Hernández-Pérez of the University of Vienna. “This makes dogs very interesting. By studying their brains, we can understand what adaptations have developed to support their remarkable social and emotional understanding of humans.”

Prior behavioral studies have shown that dogs are sensitive to emotion in human faces. Dogs will, for example, choose a box their human has identified with a happy expression over one the human treats with fear or disgust. Past fMRI studies found that an area in the canine left temporal cortex showed a stronger response to human faces compared to dog faces, as well as a greater response in the caudate, hippocampus, and amygdala to human faces showing emotion versus neutral faces.

Read full article

Comments

© Laura V. Cuaya/CC BY-SA

They’re agile, they’re creepy, and they may be coming for human jobs.

Robot dogs affixed with AI-integrated cameras are becoming the latest dystopian fixation of the security industry, especially in the US, where they’re being deployed to patrol data centers, safeguard cash crops, and police sports stadiums.

Though expensive, they’re gradually becoming a more attractive option over human security guards. At least, that’s according to new reporting by Business Insider, which notes that the cost to cover one 24/7 guard shift is anywhere from $80,000 to $130,000 cheaper per year when contracting robot dogs over human security officers.

That’s bad news for the nation’s security guards, an essential role providing low-barrier employment for uneducated workers. Often deployed to help property owners reduce insurance premiums, the role of security guard is an important source of income for some 1.3 million people. According to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, about 60.8 percent of those roles are filled by people of color, while 27.8 percent of guards are 55 or older.

It is, however, a difficult job to make a living on, with the median annual wage of just $38,390 as of 2024. That being the case, the industry faces a high degree of turnover, which tech companies are all too happy to exploit.

“Training them and staffing them is super inconsistent, and it’s a big burden on the business,” Damon Henry, CEO of robot dog company Asylon, told BI.

So far, Henry says he has about 50 robots deployed across 25 customers nationwide. Compared to a workforce of 1.3 million humans, that might not sound like much. But if robotic production lines get more efficient and the bots themselves become cheaper to roll out, it’s hard to imagine the nation’s businesses keeping low-paid security guards on the payroll out of charity (just look at what happened with Walmart greeters.)

Still, you probably haven’t bumped into your last mall cop quite yet. As director of the UC Berkeley Labor Center’s Low-Wage Work program and co-author of the report referenced above Enrique Lopezlira told BI, the role is likely to experience pressures similar to that of other workers facing automation: security jobs won’t disappear entirely, but they will get much more demanding.

“The realistic near-term effect is not that guards are replaced,” Lopezlira said. “The human role is going to be pushed toward those hardest, higher-stakes parts of the work.”

More on robots: Startup Sued After Delivery Bot Clobbers 73-Year Old Woman

The post Robot Dogs Suddenly Taking Jobs From Human Security Guards appeared first on Futurism.

I recently returned from a safari through Zimbabwe and South Africa. The high point, I’ll confess, was one wildlife encounter in particular.

Source

A dog’s nose is a gateway to a richer world, and scent-filled walks, games, and food hunts can transform boredom and stress into excitement, focus, and discovery. While we are captivated by a vivid sunset and breathtaking views, dogs have their noses to the ground, reading the odor stories left behind by other dogs and [...]

A new “Doginburgh Inventory” finds most dogs favor one paw, at least weakly.

Researchers in Austria have developed a four-legged robot that could make firefighting operations safer by entering dangerous areas and detecting hazardous substances before firefighters have to go in. The robot, developed under the leadership of researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), is designed to act as an advance scout during emergencies involving toxic […]

The post Robot dogs could help firefighters safely detect hazardous chemicals appeared first on Knowridge Science Report.

China’s Booming Dog Preschools Every weekday morning in Shanghai, a small crowd of dogs trots through the doors

The New York Times described the stunning behavior over 100 years ago.