A study by German scientists shows that people distinguish between friendly, neutral and aggressive nonverbal interactions between people, dogs and monkeys with the same accuracy. However, contrary to the researchers’ assumptions, we define dog and human attacks as the worst – be

A study by German scientists shows that people distinguish between friendly, neutral and aggressive nonverbal interactions between people, dogs and monkeys with the same accuracy. However, contrary to the researchers’ assumptions, we define dog and human attacks as the worst – because we may tend to think that people and their “best friends” are better than they actually are.

Humans and animals constantly interpret various signals from relatives and other species to evaluate their behavior and predict what will happen next. It is especially important to assess the aggression of others and the danger of the situation, because this ability can save lives.

A team of scientists from various German institutes compared how accurate people evaluated interactions between other people, dogs and monkeys. They pay special attention to aggression. The study was published in the journal PLoS ONE.

To determine how people evaluate social situations, the researchers conducted an experiment with 92 people. They were asked to watch 27 video clips, each showing a nonverbal interaction between a pair of children, dogs or monkeys. Participants were divided into two groups: one group divided the interaction into friendly, neutral, or aggressive, and the other group predicted the outcome of each situation.

The study found that participants predicted accurate results in 50-80% of interactions. However, the accuracy of classification and prediction depends on the type of interaction and the social context. In contrast to the experimenter's hypothesis, participants scored the interaction between dogs and monkeys and children. They also do the worst in detecting dogs and others’ aggressiveness.

This looks weird because identifying an aggressive dog or person can help avoid injury or even death. However, these assessments are much more difficult to people than they think. This is probably because we tend to assume that other people and their "best friends" -- dogs -- are out of goodwill.

The results of this study highlight the fact that social interactions are often ambiguous and show that people correctly predict the outcome of a particular situation than identifying their emotional background. In the future, scientists plan to answer questions about how we form assessments and whether we can improve these skills through training.