• Question: Can animals sense our emotions (e.g. angry, happy, sad) from the tone of our voice?

    Asked by kateemily to Charlotte, Jo, Kevin, Louise, Valeria on 13 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by sarahfb, cearasteadmanx, crazygrl123.
    • Photo: Kevin Mahon

      Kevin Mahon answered on 13 Jun 2012:

      As animals can’t understand out words, our tone of voice is very important with us – I’m not sure if they can sense our emoitons per se, but studies on dogs for example have shown that the tone of voice used when giving a command can affect their interpretation.

      People are often encouraged when speaking to cats to use soft, high tones. As someone who has a very deep and loud voice, I can attest from experience that it can make them wary!

    • Photo: Joanna Cruden

      Joanna Cruden answered on 13 Jun 2012:

      They may not have the same complex range of emotions that we do but they can feel emotions coming from us like our own fear, excitement and pleasure however they won’t necessarily read it as the emotion it is, they may read a negative energy as a weakness and positive energy as strength, this is why if you are scared or nervous around an animal it may become aggressive because it can sense you are weak, conversely if you are positive with an animal it may be more compliant because it senses you are higher in the ranking.

      Our facial expressions are important as well, for example when I used to work with monkeys we were not allowed to smile directly at the animals if we were feeling happy as they would see the smile as an act of aggression.

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