Apparently, the expression “dull as a sheep\/goat” needs to be revised. According to the study below, goats are not only perfectly capable of distinguishing various emotions in their peers’ calls but can also recognize their relatives, empathize with their peers’ emotions and even respond to these emotions – i.e. cheer a sad peer up. They are also highly intelligent and in tune with their environment and herders. Maybe medical doctors should hang out with goats more often. I never met a single doctor who even knew what empathy meant, let alone practice it. And don’t even get me started on trying to cheer their patients up. As I mentioned in another thread, many cases of depression have started by simply “talking to a doctor” (as the TV ads relentless admonish us to do) about symptoms of treatment options for a specific condition the person may (or may not) have.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/science-nature\/never-underestimate-goat-not-stupid-looks-180950265\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n https:\/\/www.wideopenpets.com\/goats-can-tell-their-friends-in-the-herd-by-the-sounds-they-make\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/2019\/jul\/09\/goats-can-distinguish-emotions-from-each-others-calls-study<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n “…They are known for gobbling socks from washing lines and for their fearsome headbutting capabilities but the rich emotional life of goats may have been underestimated<\/strong>. Scientists have found that goats are able to distinguish emotions from each other\u2019s calls and also respond to the feelings of their peers<\/strong>, a phenomenon known as emotional contagion.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \u201c…Despite its evolutionary importance, social communication of emotions in non-human animals is still not well understood,\u201d said Luigi Baciadonna, the lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London. Baciadonna and colleagues selected goats as a promising candidate for having emotional intelligence as previous research had revealed them to be <\/strong>surprisingly clever<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and to have complex social lives. One experiment had indicated they could\u00a0<\/strong>distinguish the calls of goat \u201cfriends\u201d<\/strong><\/a> from strangers\u2019 calls, raising the question of whether they could also tell how their companions were feeling<\/strong>.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n “…They then played these sounds to other animals and recorded their reaction. They found the goats could distinguish between the different types of calls. They also had different physiological responses depending on the emotion they heard. When listening to positive emotions, the goats\u2019 heart rate became more erratic. \u201cThey potentially can perceive the emotional content and be affected by the emotions of the calls they hear<\/strong>,\u201d said Livio Favaro. \u201cThere might be the first suggestion of emotional contagion through vocalisations<\/strong>.\u201d The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology, could have implications for the way livestock are housed.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n “…Rachel Sparkes, a goat keeper and spokeswoman for the British Goat Society, said the findings were in line with her experience. \u201cI find goats to be much more sensitive to change than other livestock<\/strong>, so it would make sense that they notice emotional changes in the calls from other goats,\u201d she said. \u201cI have found over the years that goats are excellent listeners. They seem able to read human emotions well and if I\u2019m having a bad day the goats will always cheer me up. They know when you\u2019re upset or happy or stressed<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Apparently, the expression “dull as a sheep\/goat” needs to be revised. According to the study below, goats…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[551,546,35,547,545,550,549,548,552],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-emotional-contagion","tag-emotions","tag-empathy","tag-feelings","tag-goats","tag-listener","tag-peers","tag-recognize","tag-vocalization","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":611,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}