If you’re a dog lover attend this educational talk regarding research on Dog Empathy. Julia Meyers-Manor says research shows that dogs respond with comfort to an individual who was crying whether that person was their owner or a complete stranger. The results suggest empathy for the person crying because this attention from the dog did not happen when the owner or stranger were laughing.

“Lending a helping paw: Dogs will aid their crying human” was written with Emily M. Sanford of John Hopkins University. It describes an experiment run by Meyers-Manor, wherein 34 sets of dogs and their owners were recruited. Each owner sat in a chair behind a clear door that the dog could easily push open. Half the people were assigned to cry loudly for help, and the other half were told to hum “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and say “help” in a calm voice.

An article co-written by Julia Meyers-Manor, Ripon College assistant professor of psychology, has garnered widespread attention nationally and internationally, including coverage from Time, NBC News, Inside Edition, the Daily Mail, The Conversation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and numerous other print and broadcast outlets.