Goats Follow Human Voice to Find Hidden Food
A study of 29 goats at a UK sanctuary found they could locate hidden pasta by following a human voice's direction.
Updated on Nov. 1, 2026 in Social Sciences
Researchers from the University of Zurich tested whether goats could use a human voice from behind a screen to find hidden food. The study, led by Stuart Watson and published in Royal Society Open Science in 2026, found the goats chose the baited bucket about 60% of the time when the voice indicated its location.
Why it matters
The results suggest goats can interpret human communicative cues, a skill previously documented mainly in dogs while chimpanzees generally fail similar tasks. The findings add to research on how different animal species understand human signals.
Of 36 goats initially tested in September 2016, 29 completed all conditions, with each goat running twelve trials total. Choice rates of about 60% with voice cues compared with roughly 47% to 49% in control conditions show a modest but measurable effect.
The players
Stuart Watson
Stuart Watson led the study on goats' use of human voice direction, published in Royal Society Open Science in 2026.
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich is a Swiss public research university whose research team conducted the goat study.
The details
A hidden researcher sat less than 30 centimeters from the empty bucket while speaking excitedly in German toward the baited bucket, so the nearest sound pointed to the wrong location in the main condition. The goats' performance resembled that of dogs, while chimpanzees generally fail the task.
Timeline
September 2016: 36 adult goats initially tested at Buttercups Sanctuary in the UK.
2020: An earlier pointing-gesture study was published in Frontiers in Psychology.
2026: The voice-direction study was published in Royal Society Open Science.
Big Picture
The goat results extend the documented pattern in which dogs follow human communicative cues while chimpanzees generally fail similar tasks. Adding a farm animal to that comparison helps map which species can interpret human signals.
The findings may shape how researchers design studies of animal cognition and how owners of working or companion animals think about the cues their animals respond to. The team plans to test more domesticated and wild species.
The takeaway
Animals can respond to human voice cues in ways that depend on the species, and the goat results add to a growing map of which animals can read human communication. Readers interested in animal behavior can use these comparisons to better understand the signals their own pets respond to.
Further reading
Explore more research on animal cognition in our Social Sciences section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The Times of India.
