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Box B3

Elephant Cognition: An Overview
Sarah L. Jacobson and Joshua M. Plotnik

Although elephant behaviour has been 2006). Two of the first experimental studies
studied extensively through decades of eth- on elephants addressed their capacity to
ological field research (Douglas‐Hamilton make visual discriminations (Rensch 1957;
and Douglas‐Hamilton 1975; Poole 1996; Nissani et al. 2005), but the results indicated
Moss et al. 2011), far less is known about that their capacity for visual discrimination
elephant cognition, especially when com- varied across subjects. More recently, a group
pared to our knowledge of widely studied of wild elephants demonstrated their ability
non‐human primate cognition (Byrne et al. to classify ethnic groups visually by garment
2009; Irie and Hasegawa 2009; Byrne and colour (Bates et al. 2007). It appears elephants
Bates 2011). However, recently, researchers can use vision to make decisions, but proba-
studying wild and captive elephants have bly not nearly as much as they use olfaction
made strides in better understanding the and audition (Plotnik et al. 2014).
social and physical cognition of the family Elephants produce many vocalisations
Elephantidae, primarily focusing on African across a broad acoustic range and have sensi-
savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) tive systems for detecting these vocalisations
and Asian elephants (Elephas maximas). (Poole et al. 1988; Langbauer 2000; O’Connell‐
Rodwell 2007). Specifically, African elephants
have demonstrated that they can discriminate
Sensory Modalities between familiar and unfamiliar infrasonic
of Elephant Cognition vocalisations (O’Connell‐Rodwell et al. 2007)
and recognise the vocalisations of individuals
Investigating the cognition of species that are over distances greater than 1 km (McComb
evolutionarily distinct from humans is a et al. 2003). African elephants are also able to
challenge, as the variability in sensory per- discriminate between ethnicities, genders,
spectives across such species must be and ages of humans from vocal cues (McComb
accounted for in experimental design (Plotnik et al. 2014). Elephants possess sophisticated
et al. 2013). Much emphasis within the field olfactory systems as well (Shoshani et al.
of animal cognition has been on the design of 2006). Studies of elephant olfactory discrimi-
experiments that rely on an animal’s capacity nation abilities have demonstrated their abil-
for using vision in the decision‐making pro- ity to distinguish between ethnic groups
cess, probably due to the field’s focus on (Bates et al. 2007) and discrete chemical
largely visual animals such as primates compounds (Rizvanovic et al. 2013; Schmitt
(Tomasello and Call 1997) and birds (Emery et al. 2018), to match different odours in a

Zoo Animal Learning and Training, First Edition. Edited by Vicky A. Melfi, Nicole R. Dorey, and Samantha J. Ward.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2020 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.