Reading the room: Humans struggle to identify aggression in dogs, other humans
IMAGE: HUMANS ARE GENERALLY GOOD AT ASSESSING SOCIAL SITUATIONS IN DOGS, BUT WE UNDERESTIMATE AGGRESSION view more
CREDIT: IMAGE BY KATRIN B. FROM PIXABAY
As a species, humans are constantly interpreting signals to assess social situations and make predictions about what could happen next. Being able to tell if someone else, whether human or animal, is happy with us, about to get aggressive, or even paying attention, can have major evolutionary advantages.
Now, a new article in PLOS ONE led by the DogStudies research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, together with colleagues from Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin and the University of Leipzig, reveals that while humans are better than chance at assessing interactions between humans, dogs, and monkeys, we struggle to predict aggressive behaviors in both dogs and humans.
To determine how good people are at assessing social situations, researchers showed 92 participants 27 video clips, each showing a non-verbal interaction between a pair of human children, a pair of dogs, or a pair of macaques. The participants were split into two groups, with one group categorizing the interactions as playful, neutral or aggressive, and the other predicting the outcome of each interaction.
Participants performed above chance level at categorizing interactions among all species and predicted accurate outcomes in 50-80% of interactions. However, the accuracy of categorizations and predictions depended on both the species and the social context of the interaction.
Intriguingly, and contrary to the experimenters’ hypotheses, participants were not better at assessing human interactions than those of other species. In addition, they performed especially poorly with aggressive interactions in dogs and in humans.
Given that identifying aggression in dogs and humans could help people avoid injury and even death, researchers expected participants to be best at assessing aggressive situations, but the current study reveals that such assessments are more difficult for people than anticipated.
“It is possible that we are biased to assume good intentions from other humans and from ‘man’s best friend’,” says Theresa Epperlein, first author of the new study. “Perhaps this bias prevents us from recognizing aggressive situations in these species.”
“Our results underscore the fact that social interactions can often be ambiguous,” adds senior author Juliane Bräuer, “and suggest that accurately predicting outcomes may be more advantageous than categorizing emotional contexts.”
While the current study reveals much about how well humans interpret social situations, it raises the question of how exactly we form our assessments and if our skills can improve with training – although previous research has shown that experience doesn’t always lead to better outcomes. To answer these questions, further studies are needed to determine which cues humans rely on while observing interactions, such as vocalizations, facial expressions, or body language, and how those cues are deployed by different species.
JOURNAL
PLoS ONE
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Dec-2022
Humans are poor at identifying aggressive behavior in videos of dogs and humans
Participants accurately identified playful interactions of human and dog pairs in video clips, but performed no better than chance at assessing aggression
Peer-Reviewed PublicationWhile humans can generally identify the nature of social interactions between children, dogs and monkeys from facial expressions and body language, we are poor at identifying aggressive behavior in dogs and humans, according to a study by Juliane Bräuer at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Germany and colleagues, publishing December 7 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Interpreting social interactions and anticipating the outcome are important skills that allow us to react appropriately, particularly when those interactions are aggressive. To investigate how well people can assess social interactions, the researchers showed 92 adults a series of short video clips showing the start of a non-verbal interaction between either two human children, two domestic dogs, or two Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus).
The video clips included clues about the nature of the interaction, such as body postures and facial expressions, but stopped just before the interaction took place. Half of the participants were asked to categorize the interaction as aggressive, neutral, or playful, while the other half were asked to predict the outcome from three possible options.
The researchers found that participants performed better than expected by chance at both tasks, except for assessing aggressive interactions in dogs and humans. People were most accurate in categorizing playful interactions, which they correctly identified 70% of the time. They performed particularly poorly at predicting the outcome of aggressive interactions in dogs. Individuals who were good at predicting outcomes for one species also performed better than average for the other species.
Humans may be biased to assume good intentions from other humans and dogs, which may prevent us from accurately recognizing aggressive interactions, the authors say. To reduce the occurrence of dog biting incidents, new dog owners could benefit from improved education about dog behavior and how to identify aggressive interactions.
The authors add: “It is important to be able to make predictions about others’ future actions in order to react optimally. Humans are quite good at categorizing and predicting social situations with other humans, dogs, and monkeys, but it depends on the context. Surprisingly, humans underestimate aggression in dogs.”
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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0277783
Citation: Epperlein T, Kovacs G, Oña LS, Amici F, Bräuer J (2022) Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0277783. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277783
Author Countries: Germany
Funding: JB was supported by the DFG grant BR 3601/7-1 (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: https://www.dfg.de/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.
JOURNAL
PLoS ONE
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Dec-2022
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