Elephants Better at Understanding Vocal Commands than Visual Cues: Study

A new study has now shown how elephants "see" the world. The study can impact strategies adopted to conserve elephants.

Elephants, a team of researchers say, can't make sense of visual cues, but can pick up vocal commands. The study was co-authored by 12-14 year old students from East Side Middle School in New York City.

The study was conducted on a group of seven Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) that were at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF) in Chiang Saen, Thailand. These elephants were presented with visual cues like pointing fingers at a hidden food source and with vocal commands.

The research team found that, unlike dogs, elephants aren't responsive to visual cues. However, captive elephants are more likely to respond to vocal commands. Understanding how an animal responds to a particular cue is important in making strategies to protect them.

"If elephants are not primarily using sight to navigate their natural environment, human-elephant conflict mitigation techniques must consider what elephants' main sensory modalities are and how elephants think so that they might be attracted or deterred effectively as a situation requires," said Joshua Plotnik, PhD, founder and CEO of Think Elephants, a nonprofit organization that works for the conservation of elephants.

"The loss of natural habitat, poaching for ivory, and human-elephant conflict are serious threats to the sustainability of elephants in the wild. Put simply, we will be without elephants, and many other species in the wild, in less than 50 years if the world does not act," Plotnik added in a news release.

The study is published in the journal PLOS One.                                                                         

Asian elephants are slightly smaller than African elephants and have rounded ears. These elephants have been part of the Asian society for thousands of years, although poaching and declining habitat have now decreased their numbers in the wild. Currently, Asian elephants are endangered, with 25,600 to 32,750 individuals remaining in the wild.