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Author (up) Proops, L.; McComb, K. url  doi
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  Title Cross-modal individual recognition in domestic horses (Equus caballus) extends to familiar humans Type Journal Article
  Year 2012 Publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 279 Issue 1741 Pages 3131-3138  
  Keywords  
  Abstract It has recently been shown that some non-human animals can cross-modally recognize members of their own taxon. What is unclear is just how plastic this recognition system can be. In this study, we investigate whether an animal, the domestic horse, is capable of spontaneous cross-modal recognition of individuals from a morphologically very different species. We also provide the first insights into how cross-modal identity information is processed by examining whether there are hemispheric biases in this important social skill. In our preferential looking paradigm, subjects were presented with two people and playbacks of their voices to determine whether they were able to match the voice with the person. When presented with familiar handlers subjects could match the specific familiar person with the correct familiar voice. Horses were significantly better at performing the matching task when the congruent person was standing on their right, indicating marked hemispheric specialization (left hemisphere bias) in this ability. These results are the first to demonstrate that cross-modal recognition in animals can extend to individuals from phylogenetically very distant species. They also indicate that processes governed by the left hemisphere are central to the cross-modal matching of visual and auditory information from familiar individuals in a naturalistic setting.  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5616  
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