A new study reports that goats can use direction from human voices to find hidden food treats. Across experiments, researchers present goats with a choice of locations involving a treat-filled bucket and guide the animals using human vocal cues. The results show that the goats move toward the treat location about 60% of the time when guided by a researcher’s voice. The findings suggest that goats can interpret human auditory signals in a way that allows them to locate objects, paralleling abilities previously demonstrated in dogs. The study also notes that some other species, including chimpanzees, have struggled in comparable tasks that require using human cues to find hidden items. While the exact experimental setup and comparison methods vary across descriptions, the shared outcome is that goats reliably respond to the direction of a human voice more than would be expected by chance. The researchers present the work as evidence that goats possess a relatively uncommon capacity among animals to follow human communication toward a food source.
Study finds goats can follow human voices to locate hidden food
A new study reports that goats can use direction from human voices to find hidden food treats. Across experiments, researchers present goats with a choice of locations involving a treat-filled bucket...
- Researchers test whether goats can use human vocal cues to find hidden food treats.
- In the experiments, goats move toward the treat location about 60% of the time when guided by a human voice.
- The findings suggest goats can interpret direction from human speech to locate objects.
- The study compares the ability to similar findings in dogs.
- The work notes that some other animals, including chimpanzees, have performed less well in comparable cue-following tasks.
Goats appear to have a rare ability not shared by many in the animal kingdom, and that is being able to follow the direction of a human voice to locate hidden objects. While dogs have been shown to do this, even our closest primate cousins, like chimpanzees, have struggled with the task in previous experiments.
3 weeks agoGoats were able to find food by following a human voice 60 per cent of the time
3 weeks agoExperiments show 29 animals moved towards a treat-filled bucket 60% of the time when guided by a researcherWhen it comes to following human cues, it seems the greatest of all time might actually be the goat.Researchers have discovered that, like young children, goats are able to follow the direction of a human voice to find an item. Continue reading...
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