“We are using in many ways-for their milk, their meat, their skin-and in return we should try to learn as much as we can about them and find out how we can improve their lives,” said the study’s lead author, Annika Lange, in an email. This time, they were also interested in figuring out whether human voices might affect the animals-and if so, whether cows had a preference between live and recorded talking. Previously, these scientists had looked into how cows respond to human touch. The findings, published last week in Frontiers in Psychology, stem from an experiment conducted by a team of farm animal welfare researchers.

(Who among us?) This emerging research could raise new questions about how human-animal interactions affect livestock productivity. The next time you need to help a cow relax, may we suggest massaging it gently, while whispering sweet nothings into its ears? According to a new study on human-cow interactions, animals that experience tender stroking in conjunction with live communication-as opposed to recorded voices-are more likely to enter a state of blissful relaxation afterward.

Zoom call with a cow