What makes us social?

'Dogs are man's best friend', the famous saying goes. They are loyal, always part of the family holiday and get their owners out for a walk even when it is raining. Behavioural researchers compare the bond between humans and their four-legged companions to the bond between a mother and a child. Evidence for this comes from behavioural observations. For example, dogs seek out their trusted human for support in unpleasant situations. When separated from their owner, dogs show signs of stress.

These scenarios are part of a classic test paradigm in psychology, known as the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). Remarkably, in such settings, dogs and owners behave in ways strikingly similar to mothers and children (see Topál et al., Journal of Comparative Psychology, 1998). And this close bond shows not only in behaviour, but also in brain activity. Even an unfriendly look from a familiar caregiver activates areas in the dog's brain that otherwise respond to rewards (see Karl, Boch et al., Scientific Reports, 2020).

How similar are humans and dogs?

"Dogs and humans share many social skills," explains Magdalena Boch, cognition researcher at the University of Vienna. For example, dogs, too, can distinguish between positive and negative facial expressions, both in their own species and in humans. Behavioural studies have also shown that dogs consider the attention, knowledge or even the intentions of their counterpart in social interactions.

"For us humans, it is often easy to assess the behaviour of others because we constantly make predictions about their actions or intentions. There are even specialised areas in the brain for these social predictions which become particularly active when something unexpected happens," Boch explains. She and her team are currently investigating whether dogs also have such specialised structures.

For this investigation, the animals are allowed to ’watch television’. "We show them videos of dogs playing with one another. In one version, the interactions proceed as expected, while in another, something unexpected happens – for instance, when a third dog suddenly joins the game or when one of the playmates suddenly loses interest and breaks it off," Boch says. These are not impossible twists, but they invite reflection on the possible reasons. "If dogs possess similar brain regions for social predictions, we expect these areas to be more strongly activated during unexpected turns than during uninterrupted play," explains the scientist.

These so-called neuroimaging and behavioural measurements are carried out at the Faculty of Psychology and at the Messerli Research Institute founded in 2010 (see info box). The experiments are developed together with professional dog trainers and tailored so that they work equally well for humans and for dogs. The research is entirely non-invasive, and the enthusiasm of the canine participants matches that of the dog trainers and researchers.

"We can learn a great deal about how the human brain works by comparing it with that of dogs," Boch emphasises. The temporal lobes, located on the sides of the cerebrum and home to many sensitive and sensory neurons, appear to be crucial for our social behaviour. "What fascinates me every single day is how much we still do not know."

A dog’s everyday life in the lab

Human-animal interactions

Magdalena Boch is currently working at the University of Oxford, where she continues to explore her research questions. As a postdoctoral researcher on the Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship programme, she studies the wild relatives of our domestic dogs, such as the African wild dog. She also focuses on the question of how humans perceive wild animals. For example, the wolf is native to Austria and shares over 98 per cent of its DNA with dogs. Still, it is far from becoming man's best friend. Boch, who received the prestigious For Women in Science Award in 2024, aims to shed more light on human-animal interactions and thus contribute to a peaceful coexistence between humans and animals.