Cows show a visual preference for new human faces over familiar ones. They can match a known handler’s voice to their face, according to a study.
Domestic species such as cows live in close contact with humans and are also highly social animals. To better understand whether cows could discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar faces, the authors of the study collected data from 32 Prim’ Holstein cows.
They played the cows muted videos of familiar and unfamiliar male faces, and measured how long the animals gazed at them. They looked for cross-modal recognition, playing videos of familiar and unfamiliar faces while broadcasting audio corresponding to one of the two men, with each man saying an identical sentence. They also measured the animals’ heart rates as they watched the videos to see if the cows responded emotionally.