![]() Everyone loves dogs. I know I do. They are mankind's best friend. We love to play fetch with them and keep them company. However, which emotions do dogs actually experience compared to the emotions in humans? Before I explain my purpose, let’s trace back to the discovery of the brain difference with animals. The discovery of the brain differences started with the theory that humans were “big-brained apes” by Charles Darwin. This meant that we had the same structure and “basic uniformity” as the apes and mammals. However, it was not until the 1990s that neuroscientists found minuscule differences based on a microscope. Two neuroscientists, Preuss and Coleman, discovered through a microscope that though we may have a similar look of the brain with apes or other types of mammals, the human brain has a more intricate structure. It is described as a complex mesh like pattern which can create deep, complex topics from the brain. It is fascinating to know that over 80 to 100 neurons are stored in our brain for just vertical parallel processing. The downside to this is that our complex pattern of the human brain can cause complications such as Autism, Alzheimer’s, or schizophrenia. Some examples of how we are different to an animal’s brain is through many abstract thoughts. The number one that separate the brain of the human compared to the brain of the animals is our self-awareness or consciousness. Based on our pre-frontal cortex, we have the knowledge that humans take for granted that we have the awareness to think and to make decisions. This is known as metacognition. Other examples would be the sophistication to human language and how we can remember very complex concepts and terms. Also, appreciation of beauty from a range of the nature in the park to a deeper meaning of a painting in the museum. Now we know the discovery of our brain’s differences and some examples of how we are different to them, we are going to be a little specific about only one animal and their basic brain functions: dogs. Did you know dogs have the same emotions as a human two-year old? Crazy right? I read this article online from Psychology Today, that dogs have all of the same brain structures that produce emotions in humans such as the same hormones and same chemical changes. One example would be both humans and dogs have the same hormone oxytocin, which is feeling love and affection for others. The contrasting topic between dogs and humans is their brain development. Dogs go through their stages of development more quickly, and “have all of the emotional range that they will ever achieve by the time they are four to six months of age.” The problem is that dogs will not ever go through emotions that are complex such as guilt, pride, or shame because they would not even understand it too. Unlike humans, even though the stages of development for emotions takes longer, we have an expanded choice of emotions. One trend on the webs that provides evidence to dogs not feeling complex emotions is called dog shaming. Dog shaming is an internet meme of an image of a dog with a sign that describes some bad things the dog did wrong. Some of these posts are pretty funny, I must say (like the one example I added to this blog). Since dogs do not understand what that the human owners did to them, they do not feel a sense of guilt whenever this happens. Overall, it is interesting to see the many similarities and differences between the emotion of dogs and humans. At the end of the day, dogs are still super cute and the best friends with all humans everywhere.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHello. Welcome to all things psychology. Enjoy! Archives
December 2017
Categories
All
|