Study finds humans understand the meaning of animal sounds

In an article for the Royal Society Open Science journal, Dr. Elodie Brifer and colleagues report how they recorded the vocalizations of six animal species – horses, pigs, goats, cattle, Przewalski’s (wild horses) and wild boars.

The first sound was recorded when the animal was aroused—determined by a high heart rate or movement—and whether the sound was made in a positive context, such as waiting for food, and then in a negative context, such as in isolation, when the animal was calling for mates.

For humans, the team used existing recordings of nonsensical lines of speech spoken in rage or fear to represent higher and lower emotional intensity—or arousal—respectively, and in an angry or joyful manner to suggest a negative or positive context.

The researchers then asked 1,024 participants from 48 countries to listen to pairs of sounds.

For each species, four pairs of vocalizations were played out to the participants. In two pairs they were asked to rate the emotional intensity of the sound as high or low, and in the other two pairs they were asked to rate the emotion as positive or negative.

The results show that, overall, participants correctly assessed the emotional intensity of the subject in 54.1% of the cases and the type of emotion in 55.3% of the cases.

However, when the team analyzed the data further, they found that the participants performed better on both metrics when assessing the vocalizations of pigs, horses, goats, humans, and—on emotion type alone—wild boars.

“In general, people are better at recognizing the emotions of pets than wild ones,” Briefer said.

The level of arousal in pigs and horses was correctly assessed 59% and 58% of the time, respectively, compared to 55% in humans, while their emotion type was correctly assessed 58% and 64% of the time, respectively, compared to 68% in humans. of people.