Goats are able to use the direction of human speech to figure out where food might be.
Researchers found that goats, like young children, can use the direction of a human voice to find an object.
Professor Simon Townsend from the University of Zürich, according to The Guardian, described this as a “vocal form of pointing,” meaning the direction someone speaks can act like a guide.
Interestingly, this ability has not been seen in chimpanzees but has been observed in dogs, which suggests it may be related to domestication—how animals have adapted to living with humans over time.
Researchers published their study in Royal Society Open Science. They tested goats by setting up two buckets on either side of a screen.
First, the goats were trained to get used to the setup. They heard a person calling their names from behind the screen while watching food being placed in one of the buckets.
In the actual test, the goats did not see where the food (uncooked pasta) was placed. A hidden researcher put it in one bucket, then positioned both buckets on either side of the screen.
The researcher then behaved in different ways: sometimes standing by the empty bucket and speaking excitedly toward the correct bucket, sometimes staying silent, and sometimes speaking while facing away from both buckets.
After that, each goat was released and researchers watched which bucket it chose.
Across 29 goats and 12 tests each, goats picked the correct bucket about 60% of the time when the human voice was directed toward it. But when the researcher was silent or spoke in the wrong direction, the goats were only right about half the time (around 47–49%), which is basically random chance.
The researchers concluded that goats can naturally follow the direction of a human voice to find food, even without training.
Dr Stuart Watson said this may help explain how some animals became better adapted to living with humans, and could also be useful for improving animal welfare.
