Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) recognise human visual attention from body and face orientation

Visual attention has mostly been studied in primarily visual species, such as nonhuman primates. Although elephants rely more on acoustic and olfactory cues, they also use visual displays and gestures to communicate. Smet and Byrne (2014) showed that African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) recognise human visual attention based on face and body orientation, but this has not been investigated in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). We tested ten captive female elephants in Thailand and analysed the frequency of experimenter-directed signals in a food-requesting task based on the experimenter's body and face orientation. Elephants gestured most when both the experimenter's body and face were oriented towards them, and body orientation appeared to be a stronger visual cue than face orientation, but this effect was only observed when her face was also oriented towards the elephant. This suggests that elephants are not sensitive to face or body orientation alone and rely on a combination of body and face cues to recognise human visual attention. These findings suggest that Asian elephants understand the importance of visual attention for effective communication, contributing to our understanding of cognitive abilities across the elephant taxon and visual attention in animals.