Supplementary material from "Cross-modal recognition of familiar conspecifics in goats"

Animals may also be able to combine current information with previously acquired information from other sensory modalities, indicating that they possess complex cognitive templates of individuals that are independent of modality. We investigated whether goats ( Capra hircus ) possess cross-modal representations (auditory–visual) of conspecifics.

We presented subjects with a recorded conspecific call broadcast equidistant between two individuals, one of which was the caller. We found that, when presented with a stablemate and another herd member, goats looked towards the caller sooner and for longer than the non-caller, regardless of caller identity. By contrast, when choosing between two herd members, other than their stablemate, goats did not show a preference to look towards the caller.