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The six faces you make to communicate with your dog - and baby

The 'special happy' facial expression
The 'special happy' facial expression

When congratulating a dog on completing a big stretch or successfully fetching a tennis ball, people often adopt the same high-pitched tone of voice as when talking to a baby.

However, scientists have now found for the first time that we not only sound the same when communicating with pets and infants, but we pull the same facial expressions too.

Infant-directed and animal-directed speech are well known phenomena and involve adults using tones and mannerisms which they do not use when conversing with people the same age.

A team of scientists from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary, have discovered there are six expressions which people make when face-to-face with a canine and a baby.

“Fish face”, “mock surprise” and “special happy” have been identified between parents and children before.

This study shows those expressions also being used by adults interacting with dogs, as well as three more - “mock surprise brow”, “mock surprise mouth” and “mock surprise happy”.

Scientists recruited 42 people who had a child under 18 months old and a family dog at home, in the first research of its kind.

The babies ranged from three to 17 months old, while the dogs spanned from one to 12 years old and included mongrels, collies, dachshunds and poodles.

Interactions between the baby, dog and another adult occurred in the volunteers’ homes and were recorded on camera. Adults behaved similarly when interacting with babies and dogs, but did not use the same faces when conversing with their peers.

The most common face pulled was the “special happy” expression which the scientists say “is basically an intense Duchenne smile” with an open mouth.

“The Duchenne smile is described as a spontaneous, genuine expression of an intense happy emotion that communicates strong social affiliation and interest,” the study says.

“Accompanied with an open mouth, the Duchenne smile is perceived as even more happy as opposed to the closed mouth version of the same smile.”

The popularity of this facial expression reveals that adults are keen to get across to infants and animals that they are happy and willing to engage.

“There is no doubt that such a smile has the potential to enhance positive interactions with an infant, and now we can extend this assumption to canine companions,” the scientists say.

Key part of human relationships with babies and pets

They add that the faces are likely to be a key component of human relationships with our young and our pets, saying they are probably key in getting and keeping their attention; fostering emotionally positive interactions; and to strengthen social bonds.

“Our study provides evidence for the first time that infant-directed and dog-directed communication can be characterised by similar specific facial expressions of female and male speakers,” the scientists write in the study, published in Scientific Reports.

“In addition to the previously described three faces toward infants, here we have identified three novel expressions.

“Our results indicate that all six facial expressions are typical in both infant- and dog-directed communication but rare or completely missing from adult-directed communication.”

Expressions adopted more often with child

The animal behaviour experts add that there are no facial expressions unique or reserved just for babies, with adults using the entire facial armoury to communicate with both dogs and humans.

However, people adopted one of the six faces more often with a child than a pet. There was no difference between men and women, data show.

Dr Anna Gergely, first author of the study, told The Telegraph that the exact purpose of the facial expressions remains unknown.

“We do not know yet the exact function of the faces,” she said, adding that work is now ongoing into this.

“Facial prosody is a really unstudied area and our article is only a first step to find out these questions and hopefully our next studies will provide some answers.”