When it comes to following human cues, it seems the greatest of all time might actually be the goat.

Researchers have discovered that, like young children, goats are able to follow the direction of a human voice to find an item.

“This is a vocal form of pointing,” said Prof Simon Townsend, a senior author of the study based at the University of Zürich.

Researchers say the ability to follow such cues has not been found in chimpanzees, but has previously been shown by dogs – raising the possibility the skill could be linked to domestication.

To explore the possibility, Townsend and colleagues turned to one of humanity’s oldest domesticated species: the goat.

Writing in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the team report how they placed two buckets either side of a wooden screen, and familiarised goats with the set up by repeatedly calling them by name from behind the screen while visibly placing food in one of the containers.

In the tests that followed, a researcher hid behind the screen and placed some uncooked pasta in one of the buckets without the goats seeing.

The researcher then placed the two buckets either side of the screen. Remaining concealed, they either stood by the empty bucket and spoke excitedly in the direction of the baited container, did not say anything at all, or spoke excitedly with their back to the screen – meaning they faced away from both buckets. Another researcher then released a goat, and its movements were recorded.

The results from 29 goats, each of which underwent 12 trials, reveal on average the animals moved towards the treat-filled bucket 60% of the time when the researcher made excited sounds in its direction.

By contrast, on average, the goats did no better than chance when the researcher was silent or spoke away from both buckets, with a 47% and 49% success rate respectively.

The team say the results suggest goats can – without training – follow the direction of an unseen human’s voice to find a treat.

Dr Stuart Watson, the first author of the study from the University of Zürich, said the findings may shed light on the cognitive changes that helped species become more compatible with human living, adding that could be important for animal welfare.

“I think it’s really advantageous to us and them to understand how they perceive the world better,” he said.

The team note it is not the first time goats have shown a sensitivity to human cues, with previous research revealing such animals can follow pointing gestures, tell apart different types of emotion in human voices, and prefer positive human facial expressions to negative ones – among other findings.

The team note it would be interesting to repeat the experiments in wild goats to explore whether the findings alternatively suggest an innate ability, adding work is needed to explore whether animals pay attention to the direction of each other’s vocalisations.

However, Townsend suggests the study highlights the parallels between humans and other animals.

“This is just another nice example where we’re slowly picking apart what is really special to human communication. And when we look, we actually start to see more and more similarities [to other species],” he said.