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'Puppy Dog Eyes' May Have Evolved Just to Make Humans Melt - And It's Working
You know how when your dog wants something, she makes that face? You know the one - all beseeching, with eyes that seem to positively quiver with longing? You'd give her anything, right?
It turns out that our response to canine looks of longing or love may be the very reason dogs can make them. New research has found that the facial muscles involved in making these expressions can only be found in dogs, not wolves - suggesting our furry best friends evolved the ability specifically to communicate with humans.
"The findings suggest that expressive eyebrows in dogs may be a result of human unconscious preferences that influenced selection during domestication," said behavioural psychologist Juliane Kaminski of the University of Portsmouth.
"When dogs make the movement, it seems to elicit a strong desire in humans to look after them. This would give dogs that move their eyebrows more, a selection advantage over others and reinforce the 'puppy dog eyes' trait for future generations."
[...]For this research, the team did something different: they studied dog (Canis familiaris) behaviour as compared to wolves (C. lupus), and performed a comparative analysis of the facial anatomy of both species.
[...]"To determine whether this eyebrow movement is a result of evolution, we compared the facial anatomy and behaviour of these two species and found the muscle that allows for the eyebrow raise in dogs was, in wolves, a scant, irregular cluster of fibres," said anatomist Anne Burrows of Duquesne University.
"The raised inner eyebrow movement in dogs is driven by a muscle which doesn't consistently exist in their closest living relative, the wolf."
[...]The research has been published in PNAS.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday June 18 2019, @11:46PM (2 children)
> TFS : "suggesting our furry best friends evolved the ability specifically to communicate with humans"
You're not wrong, but the wording is backwards.
Humans who like the trait selected for it. Dogs did nothing to "evolve" it, except bang with the provided partner.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday June 19 2019, @01:58AM (1 child)
Evolution is merely a process where genetic variation in a population leads to some members having a higher survival rate than other members of the group, generally due to an ability of some members to survive better in conditions around them.
The way both you and GP talk about evolution sounds backwards, more Lamarkian than Darwinian. No animal does anything itself to "evolve" -- rather, random mutations are selected by environmental factors.
The new conditions of wolves a while back included an environmental pressure created by humans. Humans who hunted wolves that were too wild but perhaps rewarded more tame animals. Those genetically more suitable to their environment and ecosystem (including humans) survived more and reproduced. This is textbook evolution.
Note, regarding TFA that this eye characteristic seems to be part of the well-known common features of domesticated animals to have somewhat "babylike" or "juvenile" features, e.g., bigger eyes, ears, etc. than wild counterparts, with juvenile features surviving into adulthood. It may not be the eye movement itself that causes the "aww" response in humans as much as a general emphasis on the eye features that make them look bigger and more "baby animal-like."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 19 2019, @03:38PM
Please don't lump me in with bob_super, when I specifically mentioned 2 mechanisms for cute-to-humans being transmitted into subsequent generations more commonly than less-cute-to-humans. I definitely don't think Lamarck was right about this.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.