Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word that you do not need.

A. facilities       B. signals       C. excel       D. social       E. apparently       F. objects G. natural       H. process       I. function       J. instead       K. definitely

Your dog’s brain doesn’t care about your face

It’s just not in dogs’ DNA to care about human faces, a new study has found. And there’s no area in their brain designed to distinguish between the back or front of someone’s head.

Researchers measured brain activity in dogs and humans as they showed them videos of faces and backs of heads, said a press release from Eötvös Loránd University, in Hungary. While faces are【小题1】 important for visual communication in humans, the same can’t be said for our dog companions.

Experiments involving functional magnetic resonance imaging(FMRI，功能性磁共振成像)on 20 dogs were carried out at Eötvös Loránd University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. These two【小题2】 are some of the only institutions in the world that are equipped with the ability to scan dogs’ brains when they are awake and unrestrained(不受约束的).

Results have revealed large specialized neural networks(神经网络)in human brains that are used to distinguish faces from non-faces. In dogs there are no brain regions that【小题3】 to tell facial differences.

Dogs,【小题4】, use more information from smell or larger parts of the body, study co-author Attila Andies at Eötvös Loránd University said. “In dogs, for relationship recognition and mate selection(配偶选择), facial cues(提示)are not more important than non-facial bodily cues, sound or chemical【小题5】,” Andics explained.

The full study, described by researchers as the first one of its kind, was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Andics said that dogs do care about human faces, even if their brains aren’t specifically tuned in to them. “I think it is amazing that, despite【小题6】 not having a specialized neural machinery to deal with faces, dogs nevertheless【小题7】 at eye contact, following gaze, reading emotions from our face, and they can even recognize their owner by the face.”

“During domestication(驯养), dogs adapted to the human【小题8】 environment. Living with humans they quickly learn that reading facial cues makes sense, just as humans learn to pay attention to little details of, let’s say, a phone, without having specialized phone areas in their brain,” Andics added.

Researchers will now compare how dog and human brains【小题9】 other visual categories such as body parts, various species and everyday【小题10】, said Andics. The team will also investigate whether dog brains have developed different specializations as a result of living with humans.