(THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Dogs respond to a person who is crying regardless of whether it is their owner or an unfamiliar person, researchers in Britain found.

Dr Deborah Custance and Ms Jennifer Mayer, both of the Department of Psychology at the University of London, developed a procedure to examine whether domestic dogs could identify and respond to emotional states in humans.

Eighteen pet dogs - a range of ages and breeds - were exposed to four separate 20 second experimental conditions in which either the dog's owner or an unfamiliar person pretended to cry, hummed in an odd manner, or carried out a casual conversation.

More dogs looked at, approached and touched the humans as they were crying as opposed to humming, and no dogs responded to those talking, Dr Custance said.