Dogs can detect stress in humans by their sweat and breath, research shows. (representative)
Washington:
According to a new study conducted by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, dogs can detect stress in humans through sweat and breath.
The research results have been published in PLOS ONE. The research was conducted by Clara Wilson (PhD student) and Kerry Campbell (MSc student) at the School of Psychology. They were supervised by Catherine Reeve, with assistance in collecting Zachary Petzel’s Human Physiological Measures
The study involved four dogs from Belfast – Treo, Fingal, Soot and Winnie – and 36 people.
Researchers collected samples of participants’ sweat and breath before and after they did a difficult math problem. They self-reported their stress levels before and after the task, and researchers only used samples where the person’s blood pressure and heart rate had increased.
The dogs learned how to search a scent set and point researchers to the correct sample. The stress and relaxed samples were then introduced, but at this stage, the researchers weren’t sure if there was an odor difference that dogs could detect.
In each testing session, each dog was given one person’s relaxed and stressed samples, spaced just four minutes apart. All dogs were able to correctly alert the researchers to each person’s stress monster.
Clara Wilson, a PhD student in Queen’s School of Psychology, explains: “The findings show that we, as humans, produce different smells through our sweat and breath when we are stressed and dogs can distinguish this from our smell when they relax. be – even if it’s someone they don’t know.
“The research highlights that dogs do not need visual or audio cues to absorb human stress. This is the first study of its kind and provides evidence that dogs can smell stress from breath and sweat alone, which could be helpful when training of service dogs and therapy dogs.
“It also helps shed more light on the human-dog relationship and contributes to our understanding of how dogs can interpret and cope with human psychological states.”
One of the super-sniff dogs that took part in the study was Treo, a two-year-old cocker spaniel. His owner Helen Parks says: “As the owner of a dog who thrives on sniffing, we were excited and curious to see Treo participate in the study. We couldn’t wait to hear the results every week when we picked him up. He was always so excited to see Queen’s researchers and make his own way to the lab.
“The study has made us more aware of a dog’s ability to use their nose to “see” the world. We believe this study really developed Treo’s ability to perceive a change in emotion at home. The study confirmed to us that dogs are very sensitive and intuitive animals and it is extremely valuable to use what they are good at – sniffing!”
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