AsianScientist (Jan. 07, 2026) – Elephants lack the expressive, forward-facing eyes of primates. Unlike chimpanzees and humans, who rely heavily on facial cues to navigate social life, it is unclear if an elephant perceives our attention at all, or if they have their own way of reading our intent from the way we turn our head or body.
Although studies have shown that African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) can read human body language, the question remains whether Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) share this ability. The two species are distant relatives, having evolved on a separate path roughly seven million years ago. Since then, they have developed some behavioural and cognitive differences.
“After conducting doctoral work on how elephants form reputations, I wanted to test whether Asian elephants understand when humans are paying attention to them,” said Hoi-Lam Jim, lead author of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
The research team, led by Jim, studied ten captive female Asian elephants at the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation, Chiang Rai, Thailand. All elephants were accustomed to human handlers. In a series of food-requesting tasks, the team observed how the elephants communicated under different visual conditions.
An experimenter stood in front of the elephants in one of four positions: facing the elephant with both body and face, turning both body and face away, facing only with the body or facing only with the face. The researchers then recorded how often the elephants gestured towards the experimenter with movements like reaching with their trunks or bobbing their heads to request food.
The elephants responded selectively, with full body and face orientation towards them prompting the most frequent gestures. Body orientation appeared to be a stronger cue than face orientation, but only when the experimenter was also looking at the elephant. Neither body nor face orientation alone was enough to trigger a significant increase in communication.
This pattern suggests that Asian elephants do not rely on a single visual signal. Rather, they integrate multiple cues to judge whether a human is paying attention and whether communication is likely to be effective.
Interestingly, if no human was present at all, the elephants gestured just as rarely when a human stood there with their back turned.
“We were surprised to find that the elephants did not gesture simply because a human was present,” Jim noted.
The elephants appeared to assess how attention was directed, increasing their gestures only when visual cues suggested that communication would be effective. This behaviour shows that Asian elephants are not just reacting to humans, but actively interpreting how humans are oriented toward them.
The research sheds new light on elephant intelligence. Even though they rely heavily on sound and smell, vision still plays a meaningful role in social interaction.
The researchers hope to build on this work by examining other cognitive abilities in Asian elephants, including cooperation, prosocial behaviour and self-control. For animals often described in broad strokes, these moments—who is looking and who is not—may reveal just how elephants read the world around them.
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Source: Kyoto University; Image: Freepik
This article can be found at: Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) recognise human visual attention from body and face orientation
