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Cognition and Perception

Selected Works

Elodie Briefer, PhD

2016

Vocal communication

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Mother Goats Do Not Forget Their Kids’ Calls, Elodie F. Briefer, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Mother Goats Do Not Forget Their Kids’ Calls, Elodie F. Briefer, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Parent–offspring recognition is crucial for offspring survival. At long distances, this recognition is mainly based on vocalizations. Because of maturation-related changes to the structure of vocalizations, parents have to learn successive call versions produced by their offspring throughout ontogeny in order to maintain recognition. However, because of the difficulties involved in following the same individuals over years, it is not clear how long this vocal memory persists. Here, we investigated long-term vocal recognition in goats. We tested responses of mothers to their kids’ calls 7–13 months after weaning. We then compared mothers’ responses to calls of their previous kids with …