ArticleScientific reports2018
Cheetahs discriminate familiar and unfamiliar human voices.
Article in Scientific reports, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Social engagement modulates wild monkeys' vocal expressions and the behavioral response to that of others.iScience · 2026Article
- "Whoooo said that?": responses of captive owls (PeerJ · 2026Article
- Wild gelada monkeys detect emotional and prosocial cues in vocal exchanges during aggression.PloS one · 2025Article
- Effects of experience and familiarity on visual attention and behaviours of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in presence of humans.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Agenda of Early Life Experience and Its Association with Sensitivity to Human Presence and Familiarity in Wild-Born Orphaned Captive Cheetahs.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Article
- Who is there? Captive western gorillas distinguish human voices based on familiarity and nature of previous interactions.Animal cognition · 2022Article
- Individual vocal recognition across taxa: a review of the literature and a look into the future.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Emotion Recognition in Cats.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2020Article
- Visual Attention Patterns Differ in Dog vs. Cat Interactions With Children With Typical Development or Autism Spectrum Disorders.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Domestic species can make the distinction between several human sub-groups, especially between familiar and unfamiliar persons. The Domestication hypothesis assumes that such advanced cognitive skills were driven by domestication itself. However, such capacities have been shown in wild species as well, highlighting the potential role of early experience and proximity with humans. Nevertheless, few studies have been focusing on the use of acoustic cues in wild species and more comparative studies are necessary to better understand this ability. Cheetah is a vocal, semi-social species, often hand raised when captive, making it therefore a good candidate for studying the ability to perceive differences in human voices. In this study, we used playback experiments to investigate whether cheetahs are able to distinguish between the voices of their familiar caretakers and visitors. We found that cheetahs showed a higher visual attention, changed activity more often and faster when the voice was familiar than when it was unfamiliar. This study is the first evidence that wild felids are able to discriminate human voices and could support the idea that early experience and proximity to humans are at least as important as domestication when it comes to the ability to recognize humans.
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