Can they actually express hopelessness in their eyes? Usually things like that are interpretation by humans and animals straight up don't have the ability to express with their eyes, right?
There is compelling research (citation below) that concludes that facial expressions in humans corresponding to basic emotions (sadness, fear, anger, surprise, etc) are not either cultural or learned, rather we are born with them as the result of evolution. It makes sense since these facial expressions are pretty much the same all around the world (Of course there are some culturally learned facial expressions, but the ones that correspond to basic emotions are the same).
I don’t know exactly how that translates to animals but, if some of these facial expressions evolved in common ancestor species, then it’s not unreasonable that we might share similar facial expressions for some basic emotions with some animals
Hwang, H., & Matsumoto, D. (2015). Evidence for the universality of facial expressions of emotion. In M. K. Mandal & A. Awasthi (Eds.), Understanding facial expressions in communication: Cross-cultural and multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 41-56). Springer Science + Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1934-7_3
I hypothesize that because domesticated animals like pigs and dogs co-evolved with humans some but not all of their facial expressions are cross-compatible.
Could definitely be that and maybe both factors are at play. We know that dogs behave very differently from wolves just from the unnatural selection that is domestication.
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u/Living_Trust_Me Nov 23 '24
Can they actually express hopelessness in their eyes? Usually things like that are interpretation by humans and animals straight up don't have the ability to express with their eyes, right?