Visual cues given by humans are not sufficient for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) to find hidden food.

Recent research suggests that domesticated species--due to artificial selection by humans for specific, preferred behavioral traits--are better than wild animals at responding to visual cues given by humans about the location of hidden food. \Although this seems to be supported by studies on a range of domesticated (including dogs, goats and horses) and wild (including wolves and chimpanzees) animals, there is also evidence that exposure to humans positively influences the ability of both wild and domesticated animals to follow these same cues. Here, we test the performance of Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) on an object choice task that provides them with visual-only cues given by humans about the location of hidden food. Captive elephants are interesting candidates for investigating how both domestication and human exposure may impact cue-following as they represent a non-domesticated species with almost constant human interaction. As a group, the elephants (n = 7) in our study were unable to follow pointing, body orientation or a combination of both as honest signals of food location. They were, however, able to follow vocal commands with which they were already familiar in a novel context, suggesting the elephants are able to follow cues if they are sufficiently salient. Although the elephants' inability to follow the visual cues provides partial support for the domestication hypothesis, an alternative explanation is that elephants may rely more heavily on other sensory modalities, specifically olfaction and audition. Further research will be needed to rule out this alternative explanation

Number of correct trials by each subject, in each visual cue condition –“Point,” Point&Orient (“P&O”), and “Orient”– and their respective controls (“Control”), probe condition (“Probe”), and vocal command condition (“Vocal”) and their respective controls (“VControl”).

<p>Columns are delineated by cue given and experimenter (J.M.P. is the first author, M is the elephant’s mahout). Each cell is out of 24 trials except Probe and VControl cells, which are out of 12 and 8 trials respectively.</p>*<p>P<0.05 for binomial test.</p

Diagrams of apparatus and elephant testing.

<p>A) The experimenter gives the “point” cue to the bucket to the elephant’s right. B). The elephant makes the correct choice after the table is pushed forward. Drawings by A. Hennessy.</p