A new study reveals dogs have the ability to differentiate between happy and mad expressions in human faces. It marks the first evidence humans aren't the only creatures that can interpret emotions and expressions.

There have been previous attempts to study if dogs can recognize emotional expressions on human faces. None of these studies have been quite successful, however.

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In this new study, researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna conducted an experiment that finally showed evidence dogs can tell emotional expressions in humans. They taught the dogs the difference between a happy human face and an angry face.

The dogs were then separated into two groups. One group was assigned to learn about happy faces and the other group learned about angry faces. During the training sessions, all the dogs were shown their respective happy and angry faces but thephotos only revealed half of the faces.

After training with 15 pairs of photos, the dogs underwent four tests. These included showing halves of faces that weren't used during training. The halves of the training faces were then shown; the other halves of the faces that weren't used during training and lastly, the other halves of the training faces.

The findings reveal that dogs are capable of identifying happy and angry faces even if they just saw half of the human faces. Dogs not only possess the ability to differentiate between emotions but also learned to apply this during new cues.

The study demonstrates dogs are capable of distinguishing between those emotions but the meaning of these expressions for the dogs is still unclear to researchers. It seems like happy faces are associated with positivity and angry faces are linked to negative emotions. Dogs became aware of keeping away from mad faces.

This study allowed researchers to observe canines and their ability to understand emotions in humans. It also showed how canines explore and express themselves using emotions and how human emotions affect their own emotions. This study was published in the journal, Current Biology.

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