Dogs and humans have co-evolved[0] for approximately 30,000 years[1] (for reference, agriculture is only 10-15k years old[2]). Human-dog gaze can cause the same effect as parent-child gaze.
Yes, wrong example. Anyway, science has shown us that human-dog coevolution does have a noticeable impact on the way we interact with dogs. Specifically, sustained eye contact between a human and a familiar dog raises oxytocin levels to increase in both. The same type of relationship has not been demonstrated with other domesticated animals, to my knowledge.
Yeah, and dogs can use their gaze to indicate to a human where the problem or whatever is though dogs can't read each other's gaze the way a human can.
A fun fact related to the subject: experiments have shown that dogs will actively try to make eye contact with humans to get help with a difficult task, while wolves will ignore nearby humans.
That remark surprised me too. I remember reading about a study about dogs vs. wolves, and that dogs were more inclined to look to a human when they needed help solving a problem. They seem to have an innate predisposition towards human faces also, which seems plausible given their hundreds of years of breeding for human companionship.
From the articles linked research:
" Recent work comparing dogs and wolves suggests that eye contact is an important behaviour underlying these social bonds; however, it remains unclear how this feature of interspecific social bonding evolved"
> Domestication shaped wolves into dogs and transformed both their behavior and their anatomy. Here we show that, in only 33,000 y, domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans. Based on dissections of dog and wolf heads, we show that the levator anguli oculi medialis, a muscle responsible for raising the inner eyebrow intensely, is uniformly present in dogs but not in wolves. Behavioral data, collected from dogs and wolves, show that dogs produce the eyebrow movement significantly more often and with higher intensity than wolves do, with highest-intensity movements produced exclusively by dogs. Interestingly, this movement increases paedomorphism and resembles an expression that humans produce when sad, so its production in dogs may trigger a nurturing response in humans. We hypothesize that dogs with expressive eyebrows had a selection advantage and that “puppy dog eyes” are the result of selection based on humans’ preferences.
Dogs have co-evolved with humans for tens of thousands of years, and demonstrate traits and behaviors that makes it much easier for humans to empathize and socialize with them. For example, you can tell when a dog is happy because their facial expressions resemble a human smile. Not so with livestock. Sure, you can figure it out after spending time with them, but it's inarguably not the same thing.
Perhaps relatedly, you can often see the sclerae of dog eyes, which you can't with wolf eyes. I think there was selection pressure there too: it was evolutionarily advantageous for a humans to be able to signal to each other where they were looking without speech or a gesture, and the same is probably true of, say, canine hunting companions.
I can't really back this up, but it's something I've noticed.
There is some strong evidence of Man and Dog working closely together going back at least 30k years, and even some evidence going back 100k years--far longer than for any other domesticated animal.
There is also evidence that the long association of Man and Dog has changed both species. By hunting together, each evolved to emphasize their strengths in the partnership, and lost things they no longer needed. There is a good discussion of this in Temple Grandin's "Animals in Translation".
Some scientists even think it was our ancestor's symbiotic relationship with dogs that let them outcompete other groups such as Neanderthals.
Dogs are able to figure out human states of mind from our facial expressions and body language much better than any other animal, and we can do the same for them. There's a good episode of "Nova" that covers this, and shows some of the experiments.
To put it succinctly, according to science dogs really are "Man's best friend".
This makes me wonder what the heck went wrong in those cultures that reject dogs, and consider them to be pests and vermin to be exterminated or at best tolerated.
I heard that was so that other humans could see what we were looking at (though dogs may also benefit).
What I did notice was that dog sclerae are more visible than wolf sclerae, and I believe that to be for similar reasons, so a human can read where exactly the dog is looking.
What really blew my mind was learning that the "puppy dog eyes" look was due to extra orbital muscles that dogs have and wolves lack. Dog faces evolved to respond to human sensitivity to facial expressions.
This brings to mind other stories I've read referencing studies showing people appear to emphasize more with dogs than other humans. Is this a recent phenomenon? Or has it always been this way?
This is definitely true for dogs/canids, eye contact is a signal of dominance and/or aggression. It’s common advice to soften your glance if you’re approaching an unfamiliar or potentially aggressive dog. It’s also helpful to make more direct eye contact when establishing you’re in charge when training them.
I’ve also noticed with many birds that they prefer indirect attention. This includes not just eye contact, but pointing a camera (or really anything) in their direction. Which unfortunately means I have very little photographic evidence of the many times I’ve had birds just hanging around being pleasant companions for a while.
I wouldn't be surprised if humans haven't changed too since dogs befriended them. I imagine it's really a symbiotic relationship in the wild.
Both are social animals. Dogs have the speed and the teeth. Humans have the brain power, stone throwing and cooking. Dogs can mind the human young to a large extent and humans can feed the baby dogs cooked food. It's win win and a fearsome combination.
I wonder if perhaps in addition to bigger eyes being cuter and therefore preferable, we're able to form bonds with animals more easily as a result of larger eyes- or perhaps more broadly that large eyes can be advantageous for social bonding. Dogs and their owners engaging in mutual gazing causes similar Oxycontin release to mother-infant gazing. I think ideas like the eyes being a "window into the soul" are related, and we're more likely to be able to determine if someone is trustworthy and genuine as indicators like pupil size are involuntary.
Eye contact is a big part of it. There was a documentary about dogs recently, where they did a simple experiment by placing a piece of food inside a cage that could not be opened by anyone but a human. First they let the wolf go at it, and it just went crazy trying to find a way in, inevitably giving up to do something else. The dog on the other hand tried for a bit, and then turn around and looked directly at the human for assistance.
[0] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6232/333
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_domestic_dog
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#History
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