Goats can differentiate between a smiling face and an angry, grumpy one, a new study has found.
According to scientists at Queen Mary University in London, goats have the ability to judge human facial expressions and that they prefer to be around people who smile than in company of the angry ones.
The research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, describes how 20 goats interacted with facial cues of human beings.
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“Important implications for how we interact with livestock and other species, because the abilities of animals to perceive human emotions might be widespread and not just limited to pets,” researcher Dr Alan McElligott said.
The tests were conducted with 20 goats shown different grey-scale images of different human beings, both smiling and frowning.
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Interestingly the animals were more eager to explore and showed greater interest in images with happy faces.
The researchers believe their work has implications for understanding how animals process human emotions and facial cues.