Cheetahs discriminate familiar and unfamiliar human voices

Abstract

Domestic species can make the distinction between several human sub-groups, especially between familiar and unfamiliar persons. The Domestication hypothesis assumes that such advanced cognitive skills were driven by domestication itself. However, such capacities have been shown in wild species as well, highlighting the potential role of early experience and proximity with humans. Nevertheless, few studies have been focusing on the use of acoustic cues in wild species and more comparative studies are necessary to better understand this ability. Cheetah is a vocal, semi-social species, often hand raised when captive, making it therefore a good candidate for studying the ability to perceive differences in human voices. In this study, we used playback experiments to investigate whether cheetahs are able to distinguish between the voices of their familiar caretakers and visitors. We found that cheetahs showed a higher visual attention, changed activity more often and faster when the voice was familiar than when it was unfamiliar. This study is the first evidence that wild felids are able to discriminate human voices and could support the idea that early experience and proximity to humans are at least as important as domestication when it comes to the ability to recognize humans.

Individual vocal recognition across taxa: a review of the literature and a look into the future

“…identifying and distinguishing strangers' voices) [110]. Captive cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, also differentiates between familiar and unfamiliar human voices, responding more frequently, for longer, and more quickly to familiar voices than unfamiliar ones [112]. Heterospecific recognition may occur in the wild as well.…”

Emotion Recognition in Cats

“…Moreover, a growing body of literature has demonstrated that domestic species recognize human faces (dogs: [5]; sheep: [22,23]; horses: [24]) and voices (cats: [3]; horses: [20,21]; pig: [19,25]; and dogs: [26]). Animals not only identify conspecifics and humans through separate sensory modalities (e.g., cats: [3]; dogs: [5]; goats: [27]; sheep: [22,23]; cattle: [6]; and cheetahs: [28]) but they are also capable of integrating identity cues from multiple sensory modalities to recognize them (dogs: [26,29]; horses: [30,31]; goats: [32]; rhesus monkeys: [2,33]; crows: [34], and cats: [35]). This high-level cognitive ability demonstrates that animals form a multimodal internal representation of individuals that is independent of the sensory modality [36].…”

Visual Attention Patterns Differ in Dog vs. Cat Interactions With Children With Typical Development or Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…Domestic, but also captive wild animals, have been shown to present a sensitivity to human attentional states, especially through gaze direction (e.g., dogs: Call et al, 2003;Schwab and Huber, 2006;horses: Sankey et al, 2011;capuchin monkeys: Hattori et al, 2007;red-capped mangabeys: Maille et al, 2012). These abilities may reflect, in the first case, effects of domestication, i.e., selection of animals more skilled in decoding human cues, but also, in both domestic and wild captive animals, shared experiences during repeated interactions (e.g., Leroux et al, 2018). Humans also are very sensitive to their pet's visual attention, as shown recently: dog owners exhibit an increase of oxytocin as a result of their dogs showing long gazes toward them (Nagasawa et al, 2015).…”