Close-Up Portrait Of A Sheep. Photo: Riccardo Cioli / EyeEm (Getty).
When I scroll through Twitter, the posts that catch my attention most are those with images of familiar faces. Celebrity images, for example, always attract my eye no matter how quickly I’m trying to scroll through a timeline full of people I don’t remember following.
Face-recognition is a very human trait that we all share. But based on some new research, sheep might have the same trait since famous faces are also capturing their gaze.
Celebrity Faces Can Be Recognized By Sheep, Study Shows
Researchers at Cambridge University are studying sheep and determining whether they recognize famous mugs as a means of gaining more understanding of Huntington’s disease, a rare but serious neurological disorder.
In their efforts, the researchers are showing the sheep black-and-white photos of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Emma Watson, TV journalist Fiona Bruce, and Jake Gyllenhaal. One of them, apparently, is already starstruck.
National Geographic has some details:
“One of them is just a fan of Jake Gyllenhaal,” lead researcher Jenny Morton said of one of the students who helped select the images. The photos used were somewhat random; they needed to be able to show various faces at different angles, so oft-photographed celebrities made a logical choice.
Maybe Gyllenhaal can send the sheep an autograph? I’m sure they’d like that.
The researchers also experimented with associating Obama’s face with a food reward. When the sheep tapped Barry’s picture, it broke an infrared beam and dispensed a treat. Eight times out of ten, the sheep recognized Obama’s face as the one who provides food. They even posted pictures of him from different angles and the sheep were still able to recognize him more than half the time. Man, Obama’s not even president anymore and he’s doing big things.
So there you have it, folks. Sheep are smart enough to recognize familiar faces, so there’s no pulling the wool over their eyes. See what I did there?
