The researchers behind this study made this discovery after observing the behaviour of 27 goats living in a sanctuary in the UK. They played them recordings of human voices expressing different emotions.

The experiment showed that goats pay more attention to sound clips when a variety of intonations are heard.

“We predicted that if goats could discriminate emotional content conveyed in the human voice, they would dishabituate, looking faster and for longer towards the source of the sound, following the first shift in valence [the shift in emotion expressed through the voice, Ed],” said Dr Marianne Mason in a statement.

Dr Marianne Mason and colleagues noticed that most of the goats looked at the speaker following a change in valence for more extended periods. The academics therefore concluded that these goats perceived a change in emotional content in the human voice.

It is important to note that not all the goats reacted in the same way to voice intonations. Many did not seem to notice the changes in valence, which could be due to a multitude of factors.

Whatever the case, the researchers are convinced that these herbivores are far more sensitive to vocal tones than was previously thought.

“We have presented here the first evidence that goats can discriminate between cues expressed in the human voice, namely, emotional valence. These findings contribute to the limited literature available indicating livestock, like companion animals, are sensitive to human emotional cues,” the researchers write in their paper, published in the journal, Animal Behaviour.

This study improves our understanding of goats’ cognitive abilities. Like dogs, these animals are particularly attentive to certain human cues including body language.

A study, published in 2018 in the Royal Society Open Science, says that these animals have a clear preference for faces that express joy.