Posted: July 4th, 2022

This article is very interesting about how elephants can distinguish between one voice and another, linking the voice to a specific behavior. I hope you find it interesting.

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Class,
This article is very interesting about how elephants can distinguish between one voice and another,
linking the voice to a specific behavior. I hope you find it interesting.
As you emit your thoughts on the article, consider the following: If a research study was conducted
and the results confirmed that certain elephant brain cells may be successfully used in humans in
managing certain pathology affecting memory in alzheimer’s patients, as well as patients who suffer
trauma or stroke afecting the neurons and the brain cells, what kind of shift would occur in society
in terms of medical break through?
Please post your thoughts on the discussion board after familiarizing yourselves with the content of
the Rubric below.
THE ARTICLE!!!
I look forward to reading your observations.
Elephants prove discerning listeners of us
humans
Retrieved from https://news.msn.com/science-technology/elephants-prove-discerning-listeners-of-
us-humans
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Seuss had it right: Horton really does hear a Who. Wild
elephants can distinguish between human languages, and they can tell whether a voice
comes from a man, woman or boy, a new study says. The study was released Monday
in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s close but not quite like
the Dr. Seuss book, where the empathetic elephant Horton hears something that others
can’t hear.
That’s what researchers found when they played recordings of people for elephants in
Kenya. Scientists say this is an advanced thinking skill that other animals haven’t
shown. It lets elephants figure out who is a threat and who isn’t. The result shows that
while humans are studying elephants, the clever animals are also studying people and
drawing on their famed powers of memory, said study author Karen McComb.
“Basically they have developed this very rich knowledge of the humans that they
share their habitat with,” said McComb , a professor of animal behavior and cognition
at the University of Sussex in England. “Memory is key. They must build up that
knowledge somehow.”
McComb and colleagues went to Amboseli National Park in Kenya, where hundreds
of wild elephants live among humans, sometimes coming in conflict over scarce
water. The scientists used voice recordings of Maasai men, who on occasion kill
elephants in confrontations over grazing for cattle, and Kamba men, who are less of a
threat to the elephants. The recordings contained the same phrase in two different
languages: “Look over there. A group of elephants is coming.”
By about a two-to-one margin, the elephants reacted defensively — retreating and
gathering in a bunch — more to the Maasai language recording because it was
associated with the more threatening human tribe, said study co-author Graeme
Shannon of Colorado State University.
“They are making such a fine-level discrimination using human language skills,”
Shannon said. “They’re able to acquire quite detailed knowledge. The only way of
doing this is with an exceptionally large brain.”
They repeated the experiment with recordings of Maasai men and women. Since
women almost never spear elephants, the animals reacted less to the women’s voices.
The same thing happened when they substituted young boys’ voices.
“Making this kind of fine distinctions in human voice patterns is quite remarkable,”
said Emory University animal cognition expert Frans de Waal, who was not part of
the study.
While it shows quite a bit about elephant intelligence and adaptability, it also indicates
a problem, said biologist Josh Plotnik, founder of Think Elephants International, a
research and advocacy group.
“This is both fascinating in that it supports evidence we already have that these
animals are behaviorally quite flexible, but also sad because it suggests that the
conflict between humans and elephants is growing,” Plotnik, who was not part of the
study, wrote in an email.
In yet another experiment, McComb and Shannon altered female and male voices,
making female voices sound male by lowering their tone and resonance, and males
sound female by raising their pitches. Those kinds of changes fool most humans, but
the clever elephants weren’t tricked, McComb said. They still moved away from the
altered male voices and not the altered female voices.

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