Do Cats and Dogs like to Look at Us?

Do cats and dogs like to look at us?

We like to look into the faces of our pets but do cats and dogs like to look at our faces?

New research has looked at our pets communication with us and this will help us understand how to improve our relationship with our feline friends and canine companions.

Do dogs like to look at us?

People are tuned into faces. We know this. It helps us communicate. We read feelings in humans and we attempt to do so in our pets too. But what do dogs do? Do they look at other dogs’ faces, at human faces or don’t they care too much for our facial expression?!

Researchers in Hungary and Mexico used MRI brain-scanning on 20 pet dogs and 30 humans to measure responses to faces. The dogs were trained to lie still in the MRI machine, resting their head on a chin rest while watching a screen. All participants were played four types of two-second video clips: the front or back of a human head, and the front or back of a dog head.

Results showed that, as might be expected, humans like faces. When viewing a face, either human or dog, people’s visual systems became active. These brain regions were quieter when people saw the backs of heads.

Dogs had a different response. Their brains weren’t impressed by faces, either those of dogs or of people. Instead, the dogs’ visual systems were more tuned to whether the video featured a dog or a human.

From this research we see that seeing a dog is more important to dogs than seeing a human face. In humans, seeing a face (dog or human) is more important than seeing a human. Humans really are tuned into faces.

We know from previous research that dogs are able to tell the difference between dog and human faces. Their ability to discriminate between different human faces is limited, however. Dogs probably rely much more on their other senses when it comes to discriminating between people.

Previous MRI research discovered that dogs preferred the scent of their own humans to all other presented scents which included scents of other dogs, both familiar and unfamiliar ones and unknown humans. Dogs’ brains also lit up when we spoke to them with light, happy talk.

What your dog really thinks about you

So, it is likely that they recognise us and their other familiar humans using a combination of scent, sound and visual cues but not by looking at our faces alone.

This study used short videos alone to measure brain responses. These did not include people, or dog, behaviour and it is rare that dogs encounter just this one aspect of people recognition. However, thinking of your dog looking out of your window at a person standing in their front yard. They do not recognise them. Not until the person speaks, acts or gets close enough for their scent to be recognised.

Your dog knows you, of course, but it is not your face that they are particularly responding to. This may be a significant difference between dogs and human style of communication but we love them anyway and I think they love us.

Cats vs Dogs: Who loves you more?

Do cats like to look at us?

Many people feel that cats are aloof but cat owners value this independent nature of cats and know that interactions, usually on their cat’s terms, are worth waiting for. But do our cats actually like to look at our faces?

A team of psychologists at the Universities of Sussex and Portsmouth have conducted a couple of experiments with cats, both exploring the slow blink as a form of communication between cats and people.

In case you don’t know it, the slow blink involves narrowing your eyes, as if you are performing a relaxed smile, followed by closing your eyes for a couple of seconds. It can be like a half blink, followed by a full blink. You may have seen your cat do this. The narrowing of the eyes is associated with positive emotional communication in a range of species, including humans, dogs and cats.

The first experiment included a total of 21 cats from 14 different owners and households. The owner slow blinked at their cat from a distance of 1m away and compared the cat’s response to when they did not slow blink.

The second experiment included an additional 24 cats. In this experiment, the researcher, who was unfamiliar to the cat, either slow blinked at the cat or adopted a neutral face without direct eye contact, to see in which situation the cat preferred to approach. They also offered the cat a flat palm while sat opposite.

The first experiment revealed that cats are more likely to slow blink at their owners after their owners have slow blinked at them, compared to when they don’t interact at all. Slow blink at your cat if you want their attention, cat owners!

The second experiment found that the cats were more likely to approach the experimenter’s outstretched hand after they’d slow blinked at the cat, compared to when they had adopted a neutral expression.

Together, this shows that this slow blinking technique can provide a form of positive, emotional communication between cats and humans.

So, try this form of cat chat with your cat and see how they respond.

More about cat love

Do our pets like to look at us?

These studies help us determine the most useful ways to communicate with our pets. Slow blink to your cats. Animate your face to your dog, combining it with talking or getting close enough for your dog to get your scent.

So, yes, cats and dogs like to look at our faces but we need to be a little more specific than just simply looking into their faces and expecting them to look – and love – us back.

Research references
Comparative Brain Imaging Reveals Analogous and Divergent Patterns of Species and Face Sensitivity in Humans and Dogs
The role of cat eye narrowing movements in cat-human communication

About the author
Dr Jo Righetti owns this website Pet Problems Solved. She is a PhD scientist, focussing on companion animals for over 20 years. More about Dr Jo here.