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Humans’ pupillary contagion extends to cats and dogs
- Source :
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2020.
-
Abstract
- When viewing pupil sizes change, our own pupil sizes change, a phenomenon known as pupillary contagion. This involuntary response is reliable between humans but can be affected by familiarity and empathy. We investigated whether the pupillary contagion response occurs for humans viewing familiar species—cats and dogs—and whether it is modulated by preferences for particular species. Pupil sizes were measured while viewing cat, dog and human images with small, medium and large pupils. Trait empathy, cat and dog affiliation and experience were subsequently measured. There was an image pupil size effect, but this did not vary by species. There was greater pupil size change to cats and dogs than to humans, but this might have been due to the varying size and appearance of the cats and dogs. Greater dog affiliation was also associated with smaller overall pupil size change to dogs and larger change to humans, but this did not interact with image pupil size. Dog affiliation might be associated with less arousal to dog images. In sum, pupillary contagion responses indicate a spontaneous transfer of information about internal states and the findings suggest that humans are sensitive to this across species, regardless of individual preference.
- Subjects :
- Male
genetic structures
Audiology
Pupil
0302 clinical medicine
media_common
CATS
Human-Animal Bond
pupillometry
05 social sciences
General Medicine
Middle Aged
cat person
Pet ownership
Large pupils
Female
Arousal
Psychology
Pupillometry
Adult
medicine.medical_specialty
Adolescent
AcademicSubjects/SCI01880
Cognitive Neuroscience
media_common.quotation_subject
Original Manuscript
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Empathy
050105 experimental psychology
Young Adult
03 medical and health sciences
Dogs
pet ownership
Behavioral Sciences Biology
medicine
Animals
Humans
dog person
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
empathy
Etologi
Psykologi (exklusive tillämpad psykologi)
Pupil size
eye diseases
Psychology (excluding Applied Psychology)
conspecifics
Cats
pupillary contagion
sense organs
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17495024 and 17495016
- Volume :
- 16
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....05e941c948a3a83477ead082de7a12c6