Staff Writer
Wolfie, wolfie, wolfie—here!
According to a study that has consequences for both the tale of dog domestication and our larger knowledge of the natural world, wolves, like dogs, identify and respond to the voices of familiar humans more than strangers.
AFP was informed by Holly Root-Gutteridge of the University of Lincoln that a long-held notion claimed that dogs’ capacity to recognize human voices was a result of years of selective breeding. Holly is also a co-author of the research that was published in Animal Cognition this week.
Since obviously no one has been breeding wolves to detect human voices, we decided to look at wolves, she explained.
The group set up speakers and first played the animals recordings of a variety of strangers’ voices, which the animals would eventually “habituate” to—that is, grow tired of—because they determined it was not relevant to them.
Then, they played the wolves a recording of their keeper speaking to them in Spanish and asking them familiar questions like, “Hey, what’s up wolves?” or “Good morning, sweethearts, how are you doing?”
The wolves raised their heads, perked their ears, and turned to face the speaker in movements that any dog owner would recognize right away.
When the researchers played the wolves recordings of strangers again to see if the impact persisted, they discovered that the wolves had once more lost interest.
The researchers played the wolves recordings of strangers again to see whether they would still lose interest, proving that the effect wasn’t random.
The team finally changed things up and had the keepers utter a stream of strange phrases to ensure that the wolves truly understood the voices of their keepers rather than just knowing terms that the familiar people would regularly say to them.
The outcomes are still valid.
Being attentive to us
It’s been observed in dogs since the era of gramophones, as depicted in the well-known painting “His Master’s Voice,” to the present day of video doorbells, though it’s not yet known whether our canines find this amusing or it frustrates them. The fact that the wolves interacted with inanimate voices played through speakers is similar to what has been observed in dogs.
In terms of consequences, Root-Gutteridge said that the fact that wolves could tell one human from another despite the fact that our species diverged in evolution tens of millions of years ago was noteworthy.
Prior to this, little was known about how animals could distinguish between vocalizations from various species. Gorillas, our distant cousins, are known to listen to people, but that was expected.
Aside from being more afraid of the elephant-spearing Maasai than the agrarian Kamba, big-brained elephants have been shown to discern the gender, age, and ethnicity of humans by their voices. They do this by giving, for example, women and children less threat value.
Given the latest discovery, “chances are, lots of species are listening to us and getting to know us as individuals,” Root-Gutteridge said.
She added that it’s not just about us. Dogs might be observing the neighborhood cats and distinguishing between one meow and another, for instance.
If the talents are that universal, it suggests that animals may interact with other species much more frequently than previously imagined.
