
Horses recognise human emotions - elorant
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35522233
======
Animats
Of course horses can recognize some human emotions. Most humans, even ones who
handle horses, can't read horse emotions well.

Horses are quite expressive, but their body language is alien. Horse facial
expressions exist, but involve very quick eye movements, something discovered
only about twenty years ago. Most of the bigger horse expressions are in ears,
lips, tail, and carriage.

If horses don't get feedback from their humans indicating some understanding
on the human side, they often stop trying to communicate. To learn how horses
communicate, watch them in an open field for long periods. There are frequent
subtle dominance displays. Not kicking, or even ears pinned back; often it's
just slightly narrowed eyes and an eye-flick, and one horse will yield space
to another. If a horse does that to you, putting hands on hips and giving the
horse a hard stare says that you got the message and aren't backing down. Most
horses get this. It's a compromise between horse body language and human body
language; a pidgin, if you will. Horses recognize eye contact. You're much
less likely to be bitten, even by a hostile horse, if you're looking at the
horse's eye and they're looking at you.

It's quite possible to "speak horse" that way. "Talking with Horses", by Henry
Blake, is useful.

Whether or not a horse understands human to human expressions depends on how
much experience they have with humans. It's a second language for horses,
after all. Horses that live in herd situations deal mostly with other horses,
and may not be that attuned to humans. Ones in stall situations tend to be
more people-oriented, by necessity. The parent article was about horses that
deal with lots of different people, so they're likely to have figured out
human expressions.

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MPSimmons
That would make them the second animal known to do this.
([http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-dogs-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-dogs-
human-emotion-happy-angry-animals-science/))

Probably not a coincidence that they're also one of the relatively few
domesticated animals
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_domesticated_animals)).

~~~
mrob
For a long time I thought of horses as basically cows you can ride. Then I saw
a video of a horse playing with a giant ball:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emxI-
nRGWBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emxI-nRGWBE)

It's acting more like a dog than a cow. And there are many other videos of
horses playing and doing tricks like dogs can. My opinion of horses greatly
improved. Thinking about it, I shouldn't have found it surprising. Horses are
herd/pack animals like dogs, so they naturally have social skills, and despite
being herbivores they are still mammals, so their body language is at least
somewhat similar to humans. And also like dogs, horses have been domesticated
to work closely with humans. Most other domesticated animals are either
solitary, or not required to work directly with humans. I think any
domesticated mammal with both those properties will likely read human
emotions. Even though the dog has the advantage of being a carnivore so it is
more similar to humans, and being required to work more independently than the
horse, putting more selection pressure on its communication skills, the horse
still far exceeds popular animals like the cat in its ability to communicate
with humans. If the dog is "man's best friend", I think the horse can be
"man's second best friend".

~~~
jjtheblunt
There are plenty of videos of cows also playing with balls and with others.
Not kidding. Look for The Gentle Barn and Dudley the cow, for one example.

~~~
mrob
Dudley looks a little smarter and more active than cows I see locally, but not
nearly as much as a horse. Most of his "playing" looks more like
scratching/rubbing type behavior, the same as you see with motorized cow
brushes.

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finishingmove
My completely unscientific opinion, coming from my own observations, is that
animals are generally much more emphatic than we give them credit for.

~~~
klibertp
> animals are generally much more emphatic than we give them credit for.

They're also frequently much more emphatic than people I mostly work with as a
programmer. ;-)

No, really: I own two cats now, and I grew up with dogs, cats, horses and
goats around and it led me to believe that animals generally do dream, do have
emotions and are generally able to understand or feel emotions of others. They
also do think, they do try to predict the future, and they do learn on their
own, sometimes frighteningly quickly.

But it's convenient to believe otherwise and even people who should know
better tend to forget about it during the meals. Just try to imagine how
eating a burger would feel with a thought like: "ok, now I'm eating something
that was smarter and more emotional than my 2yo niece".

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codezero
For some interesting history on animal behavior check this out.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans)

~~~
dmckeon
_" One person presents the photo while another holds the horse,"_

Indeed. One wonders if the person holding the horse and the person presenting
the face photos could see if the photo was of an angry or other face.

~~~
Phemist
From the article:

    
    
        Experimenters were blind to the stimulus
        in 82% of trials and analyses showed no 
        difference in subject responses according
        to this factor (see the electronic supplementary
        material tables SII and SIII).
    

So, it didn't even matter. Pretty much everyone that would be doing research
of this sort is familiar with Clever Hans, so I'm sure they'd be extra careful
when designing their experiment.

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bcg1
This study should be expanded to include wild horses. Also if they could
somehow measure "positive" reactions that would be interesting.

Domesticated horses are generally trained through fear; it is not surprising
they react to angry faces. So it might also be interesting to conduct this
same test on horses trained only with positive reinforcement techniques.

~~~
qjighap
I live in a rural community. I have had many friends and family work with our
local light-horse association. I would really appreciate you localizing that
comment about trained through fear and reporting it to your local equestrian
society. I apologize if you are not from North America and part of a country
that allows you do so.

