toggle visibility Search & Display Options

Select All    Deselect All
 |   | 
Details
   print
  Records Links
Author Brubaker, L.; Udell, M.A.R. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Cognition and learning in horses (Equus caballus): What we know and why we should ask more Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 126 Issue Pages 121-131  
  Keywords Horse behaviour; Horse welfare; Learning; Social cognition  
  Abstract Abstract Horses (Equus caballus) have a rich history in their relationship with humans. Across different cultures and eras they have been utilized for work, show, cultural rituals, consumption, therapy, and companionship and continue to serve in many of these roles today. As one of the most commonly trained domestic animals, understanding how horses learn and how their relationship with humans and other horses impacts their ability to learn has implications for horse welfare, training, husbandry and management. Given that unlike dogs and cats, domesticated horses have evolved from prey animals, the horse-human relationship poses interesting and unique scientific questions of theoretical value. There is still much to be learned about the cognition and behaviour of horses from a scientific perspective. This review explores current research within three related areas of horse cognition: human-horse interactions, social learning and independent learning in horses. Research on these topics is summarized and suggestions for future research are provided.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6021  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Mejdell, C.M.; Buvik, T.; Jørgensen, G.H.M.; Bøe, K.E. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 184 Issue Pages 66-73  
  Keywords Operant conditioning; Blanket; Rug; Thermoregulation; Cognition; Clicker training  
  Abstract Abstract This paper describes a method in which horses learn to communicate by touching different neutral visual symbols, in order to tell the handler whether they want to have a blanket on or not. Horses were trained for 10–15 min per day, following a training program comprising ten steps in a strategic order. Reward based operant conditioning was used to teach horses to approach and touch a board, and to understand the meaning of three different symbols. Heat and cold challenges were performed to help learning and to check level of understanding. At certain stages, a learning criterion of correct responses for 8–14 successive trials had to be achieved before proceeding. After introducing the free choice situation, on average at training day 11, the horse could choose between a “no change” symbol and the symbol for either “blanket on” or “blanket off” depending on whether the horse already wore a blanket or not. A cut off point for performance or non-performance was set to day 14, and 23/23 horses successfully learned the task within this limit. Horses of warm-blood type needed fewer training days to reach criterion than cold-bloods (P < 0.05). Horses were then tested under differing weather conditions. Results show that choices made, i.e. the symbol touched, was not random but dependent on weather. Horses chose to stay without a blanket in nice weather, and they chose to have a blanket on when the weather was wet, windy and cold (χ2 = 36.67, P < 0.005). This indicates that horses both had an understanding of the consequence of their choice on own thermal comfort, and that they successfully had learned to communicate their preference by using the symbols. The method represents a novel tool for studying preferences in horses.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0168-1591 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6022  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Rochais, C.; Henry, S.; Fureix, C.; Hausberger, M. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Investigating attentional processes in depressive-like domestic horses (Equus caballus) Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Behavioural Processes Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 124 Issue Pages 93-96  
  Keywords Horses; Attention; Cognition; Welfare; Depression  
  Abstract Abstract Some captive/domestic animals respond to confinement by becoming inactive and unresponsive to external stimuli. Human inactivity is one of the behavioural markers of clinical depression, a mental disorder diagnosed by the co-occurrence of symptoms including deficit in selective attention. Some riding horses display ‘withdrawn’ states of inactivity and low responsiveness to stimuli that resemble the reduced engagement with their environment of some depressed patients. We hypothesized that ‘withdrawn’ horses experience a depressive-like state and evaluated their level of attention by confronting them with auditory stimuli. Five novel auditory stimuli were broadcasted to 27 horses, including 12 ‘withdrawn’ horses, for 5 days. The horses’ reactions and durations of attention were recorded. Non-withdrawn horses reacted more and their attention lasted longer than that of withdrawn horses on the first day, but their durations of attention decreased over days, but those of withdrawn horses remained stable. These results suggest that the withdrawn horses’ selective attention is altered, adding to already evidenced common features between this horses’ state and human depression.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0376-6357 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6023  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Löckener, S.; Reese, S.; Erhard, M.; Wöhr, A.-C. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Pasturing in herds after housing in horseboxes induces a positive cognitive bias in horses Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Journal of Veterinary Behavior: Clinical Applications and Research Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 11 Issue Pages 50-55  
  Keywords judgment bias; affect; environmental enrichment; well-being; discrimination task; horse  
  Abstract Abstract Horses are kept in various housing systems, for example, with conspecifics in horse pens or singly in horseboxes, with or without pasturing. To provide appropriate living conditions for horses, it is necessary to know in which conditions they feel well or unwell. Here, a cognitive bias assessment provides information about an individual's affective state and its well-being. When a positive affective state prevails, animals tend to judge optimistically in ambiguous situations. When a negative affective state prevails, animals judge pessimistically in unclear situations. In the present study, we trained horses on a spatial discrimination task and evaluated their judgment of ambiguous locations when they had access to pastures and contact to conspecifics versus when they were kept singly in horseboxes. Ten days of pasturing and contact with conspecifics after being kept singly in horseboxes for 6 months induced a positive cognitive bias in the horses. We suggest that horses need to act out certain behaviors like exploration, social interaction, play, or grooming to fulfill their needs. After a time in which they were individually in horseboxes without pasturing and access to the herd, they seem to have a positive cognitive bias once they have access to pastures and conspecifics. This positive cognitive bias effect seems to disappear over time, as horses appear to adapt to the circumstances.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1558-7878 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6024  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Seyfarth, R.M.; Cheney, D.L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social cognition Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication Animal Behaviour Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 103 Issue Pages 191-202  
  Keywords evolution; fitness; future research; personality; selective pressure; skill; social cognition  
  Abstract The social intelligence hypothesis argues that competition and cooperation among individuals have shaped the evolution of cognition in animals. What do we mean by social cognition? Here we suggest that the building blocks of social cognition are a suite of skills, ordered roughly according to the cognitive demands they place upon individuals. These skills allow an animal to recognize others by various means; to recognize and remember other animals' relationships; and, perhaps, to attribute mental states to them. Some skills are elementary and virtually ubiquitous in the animal kingdom; others are more limited in their taxonomic distribution. We treat these skills as the targets of selection, and assume that more complex levels of social cognition evolve only when simpler methods are inadequate. As a result, more complex levels of social cognition indicate greater selective pressures in the past. The presence of each skill can be tested directly through field observations and experiments. In addition, the same methods that have been used to compare social cognition across species can also be used to measure individual differences within species and to test the hypothesis that individual differences in social cognition are linked to differences in reproductive success.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6025  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Phillips, C.J.C.; Oevermans, H.; Syrett, K.L.; Jespersen, A.Y.; Pearce, G.P. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Lateralization of behavior in dairy cows in response to conspecifics and novel persons Type Journal Article
  Year 2015 Publication Journal of Dairy Science Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 98 Issue 4 Pages 2389-2400  
  Keywords dairy cow; dominance; hemispheric processing; visual lateralization  
  Abstract Abstract The right brain hemisphere, connected to the left eye, coordinates fight and flight behaviors in a wide variety of vertebrate species. We investigated whether left eye vision predominates in dairy cows’ interactions with other cows and humans, and whether dominance status affects the extent of visual lateralization. Although we found no overall lateralization of eye use to view other cows during interactions, cows that were submissive in an interaction were more likely to use their left eye to view a dominant animal. Both subordinate and older cows were more likely to use their left eye to view other cattle during interactions. Cows that predominantly used their left eye during aggressive interactions were more likely to use their left eye to view a person in unfamiliar clothing in the middle of a track by passing them on the right side. However, a person in familiar clothing was viewed predominantly with the right eye when they passed mainly on the left side. Cows predominantly using their left eyes in cow-to-cow interactions showed more overt responses to restraint in a crush compared with cows who predominantly used their right eyes during interactions (crush scores: left eye users 7.9, right eye users 6.4, standard error of the difference = 0.72). Thus, interactions between 2 cows and between cows and people were visually lateralized, with losing and subordinate cows being more likely to use their left eyes to view winning and dominant cattle and unfamiliar humans.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0022-0302 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6027  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Schuetz, A.; Farmer, K.; Krueger, K. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social learning across species: horses (Equus caballus) learn from humans by observation Type Journal Article
  Year 2017 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 20 Issue 3 Pages 567-573  
  Keywords  
  Abstract This study examines whether horses can learn by observing humans, given that they identify individual humans and orientate on the focus of human attention. We tested 24 horses aged between 3 and 12. Twelve horses were tested on whether they would learn to open a feeding apparatus by observing a familiar person. The other 12 were controls and received exactly the same experimental procedure, but without a demonstration of how to operate the apparatus. More horses from the group with demonstration (8/12) reached the learning criterion of opening the feeder twenty times consecutively than horses from the control group (2/12), and younger horses seemed to reach the criterion more quickly. Horses not reaching the learning criteria approached the human experimenters more often than those that did. The results demonstrate that horses learn socially across species, in this case from humans.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9456 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Schuetz2016 Serial 6028  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Malavasi, R.; Huber, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Evidence of heterospecific referential communication from domestic horses (Equus caballus) to humans Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume 19 Issue 5 Pages 899-909  
  Keywords  
  Abstract Referential communication occurs when a sender elaborates its gestures to direct the attention of a recipient to its role in pursuit of the desired goal, e.g. by pointing or showing an object, thereby informing the recipient what it wants. If the gesture is successful, the sender and the recipient focus their attention simultaneously on a third entity, the target. Here we investigated the ability of domestic horses (Equus caballus) to communicate referentially with a human observer about the location of a desired target, a bucket of food out of reach. In order to test six operational criteria of referential communication, we manipulated the recipient’s (experimenter) attentional state in four experimental conditions: frontally oriented, backward oriented, walking away from the arena and frontally oriented with other helpers present in the arena. The rate of gaze alternation was higher in the frontally oriented condition than in all the others. The horses appeared to use both indicative (pointing) and non-indicative (nods and shakes) head gestures in the relevant test conditions. Horses also elaborated their communication by switching from a visual to a tactile signal and demonstrated perseverance in their communication. The results of the tests revealed that horses used referential gestures to manipulate the attention of a human recipient so to obtain an unreachable resource. These are the first such findings in an ungulate species.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9456 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Malavasi2016 Serial 6029  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Taubert, J.; Weldon, K.B.; Parr, L.A. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Robust representations of individual faces in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) but not monkeys (Macaca mulatta) Type Journal Article
  Year 2016 Publication Animal Cognition Abbreviated Journal Anim. Cogn.  
  Volume Issue Pages 1-9  
  Keywords  
  Abstract Being able to recognize the faces of our friends and family members no matter where we see them represents a substantial challenge for the visual system because the retinal image of a face can be degraded by both changes in the person (age, expression, pose, hairstyle, etc.) and changes in the viewing conditions (direction and degree of illumination). Yet most of us are able to recognize familiar people effortlessly. A popular theory for how face recognition is achieved has argued that the brain stabilizes facial appearance by building average representations that enhance diagnostic features that reliably vary between people while diluting features that vary between instances of the same person. This explains why people find it easier to recognize average images of people, created by averaging multiple images of the same person together, than single instances (i.e. photographs). Although this theory is gathering momentum in the psychological and computer sciences, there is no evidence of whether this mechanism represents a unique specialization for individual recognition in humans. Here we tested two species, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), to determine whether average images of different familiar individuals were easier to discriminate than photographs of familiar individuals. Using a two-alternative forced-choice, match-to-sample procedure, we report a behaviour response profile that suggests chimpanzees encode the faces of conspecifics differently than rhesus monkeys and in a manner similar to humans.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1435-9456 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Taubert2016 Serial 6030  
Permanent link to this record
 

 
Author Schultz, P.N.; Remick-Barlow, G.A.; Robbins, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Equine-assisted psychotherapy: a mental health promotion/intervention modality for children who have experienced intra-family violence Type Journal Article
  Year 2007 Publication Health & Social Care in the Community Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 15 Issue 3 Pages 265-271  
  Keywords children; equine; intra-family violence; mental health; psychotherapy  
  Abstract Equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP) is a specialized form of psychotherapy using the horse as a therapeutic tool. This modality is designed to address self-esteem and personal confidence, communication and interpersonal effectiveness, trust, boundaries and limit-setting, and group cohesion. Substantial numbers of children witness family violence. There is evidence that violence between parents has adverse effects on the children in the family. These children are at greater risk of behavioural problems and mental health disorders, including anxiety, anger, depression and suicidal ideations, withdrawal, low self-esteem, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The purpose of the present pilot study was to test the efficacy of EAP in a cross-sectional group of children referred to a psychotherapist for various childhood behavioural and mental health issues over an 18-month period (June 2003–January 2005). Sixty-three children received a mean number of 19 EAP sessions. Scores on the Children's Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale were determined pre- and post-treatment. The mean (± standard deviation, SD) pretreatment score was 54.1 (SD 3.2) and post treatment mean score was 61.7 ± 5.0 (t = 9.06, d.f. = 96, P < 0.001). All children showed improvement in GAF scores, and there was a statistically significant correlation between the percentage improvement in the GAF scores and the number of sessions given (r = 0.73, P = 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that the greatest improvement in the GAF scores occurred in the youngest of the subjects. Children in the group who had a history of physical abuse and neglect had a statistically significant greater percentage improvement in GAF scores after treatment than those who did not have a history of abuse and neglect. This study has demonstrated a quick response to EAP, especially in younger children, but it remains to be determined what kind of long-term effects this type of intervention may provide.  
  Address  
  Corporate Author Thesis  
  Publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd Place of Publication Editor  
  Language Summary Language Original Title  
  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title (up)  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 1365-2524 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6031  
Permanent link to this record
Select All    Deselect All
 |   | 
Details
   print