How Goats (And Perhaps People) Make Up Their Minds

Why do animals — including people — behave the way they do?

That's a question long pondered by researchers.

A new study on this pressing topic, published this month in Royal Society Open Science, reveals an interesting insight into goats — and perhaps humans as well.

Daniel Sankey, who researches animal behavior at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, and Andrew King, associate professor of biosciences at Swansea University in Wales, wanted to follow up on a classic 1996 study of buffalo that drew a rather surprising conclusion (at least to those who don't give much thought to animal behavior).

The buffalo researchers determined that a herd of buffalo will "vote" on which way to go based on a kind of body-language ballot system — if, say, three animals are turned to face the lake and one is turned to face the meadow, the buffalo will monitor the various directions the bodies in the herd are facing and go with the majority. So the study says that the buffalo would calculate the "average orientation of the whole herd" in their heads to decide where to go, says Sankey. I spoke with him about that study and his study.