When you watch programs about monkeys on TV, do you have face blindness? Have you ever wondered how the scientists know who is who when they study monkeys’ behavior?

In the past, scientists had to make special signs on each of the animals. But in the future, they may have much easier way to identify (辨认) them thanks to facial recognition (面部识别) technology.

A research team from China’s Northwest University is using facial recognition technology to identify thousands of snub-nosed monkeys (金丝猴) that live on Qinling Mountain in Shanxi Province.

Similar to human facial recognition, the technology creates a system that includes every monkey’s facial picture, Xinhua reported.

“When the system is fully developed, we can connect it with cameras set up in the mountains. The system will recognize the monkeys, name them and study their behavior,” said Zhang He, a member of the research team.

“We used mobile phones and cameras with’ the monkeys in tests and stayed about 3 to 10 meters away from them,” he added. “There is no need to disturb the monkeys.”

Compared with humans, facial recognition technology for monkeys is more difficult because of their hairy faces. The color of their hair makes them easy to hide in their environment. These are the reasons that make it harder for computers to identify them.

“Monkeys do not work with researchers in the same way humans do. It is difficult, to take high-quality (高质量的) pictures and videos of them, which are needed to improve the system,” said Li Baoguo, leader of the research team.

There are about 4,000 snub-nosed monkeys living on Qinling Mountain now. The team plans to successfully identify every monkey that lives there.

In his new book, The Animals Among Us, John Bradshaw destroys a few myths (错误认识) about the pets that increasingly crowd our homes.

Some assumptions he questions are whether animals can feel embarrassment or guilt, and whether their minds are able to plan. In an interview, he said, “Alexandra Horowitz, the author of Our Dogs, Ourselves in New York, showed that the guilty look is actually a sign of the dog’s great ability to read human body language. Dogs put the guilty look on almost before the owner knows it’s time to get angry about something the dog has done. They almost seem to react as fast as our minds can. As soon as you look at the dog, the dog is already looking guilty.”

“You make the assumption that the dog was looking guilty before you looked at it. But the science shows that the dog doesn’t start looking guilty until the moment it sees the owner’s body language.

“So, what kind of abilities do you need to feel guilt? In our human terms, guilt is quite complex. You have to compare something you did in the past with some internal norms (内在的标准), which you have learned over the course of a long period of time. There’s no evidence that the dog’s mind can do that.

“I am not saying that dogs are stupid. Their minds are very good at doing what they do. They can react more quickly to human body language than humans can. But we assume their emotions are the same as ours, and that’s the mistake.

“As for planning, there has also been a lot of research but not so much into dogs. The problem is making comparisons between animals. Although humans and dogs share some similarities, the cerebral cortex (大脑皮层), the bit we do most of our thinking with, is reduced in dogs. They rely a lot more on smell. They do have an ability to plan if they’ve been faced with a particular situation before. But they can’t imagine themselves into a situation they’ve never been in.”

Dogs wag (摇摆) their tails in different directions depending on whether they are excited and wanting to move forward or threatened and thinking of moving back, a study has found.

Researchers in Italy examined the tail wagging behaviour of 30 dogs, catching their responses to a range of stimuli (刺激物) with video cameras. To conduct the study they chose 15 male dogs and 15 female ones aged between one and six years. The dogs were all family pets whose owners had allowed them to take part in the experiment at Bari University. The dogs were placed in a large wooden box with an opening at the front to allow for them to view various stimuli. They were tested one at a time.

The researchers led by Professor Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trieste found that when the dogs were shown their owners — a positive experience — their tails wagged energetically to the right side. When they were shown an unfamiliar human they wagged to the right, but with somewhat less enthusiasm. The appearance of a cat again caused a right-hand side wag, although with less intensity again. The appearance of a large unfamiliar dog, similar to a German shepherd, changed the direction of tail wagging to the left. Researchers supposed the dog was thinking of moving back. When the dogs were not shown any stimuli they tended to wag their tails to the left, suggesting they preferred company. While the changes in the tail wagging were not easily noticed without the aid of video, it was thought that the findings could help people judge the mood of dogs. Computer and video systems, for example, could be used by professional dog trainers to determine the mood of dogs that they were required to approach.