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McComb, K., Moss, C., Sayialel, S., & Baker, L. (2000). Unusually extensive networks of vocal recognition in African elephants. Anim Behav, 59.
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Proops, L., Walton, M., & McComb, K. (2010). The use of human-given cues by domestic horses, Equus caballus, during an object choice task. Anim. Behav., 79(6), 1205–1209.
Abstract: Selection pressures during domestication are thought to lead to an enhanced ability to use human-given cues. Horses fulfil a wide variety of roles for humans and have been domesticated for at least 5000 years but their ability to read human cues has not been widely studied. We tested the ability of 28 horses to attend to human-given cues in an object choice task. We included five different cues: distal sustained pointing, momentary tapping, marker placement, body orientation and gaze (head) alternation. Horses were able to use the pointing and marker placement cues spontaneously but not the tapping, body orientation and gaze alternation cues. The overall pattern of responding suggests that horses may use cues that provide stimulus enhancement at the time of choice and do not have an understanding of the communicative nature of the cues given. As such, their proficiency at this task appears to be inferior to that of domestic dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, but similar to that of domestic goats, Caprus hircus.
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Wathan, J., & McComb, K. (2014). The eyes and ears are visual indicators of attention in domestic horses. Current Biology, 24(15), R677–R679.
Abstract: Summary Sensitivity to the attentional states of others has adaptive advantages [1], and in social animals, attending to others is important for predator detection, as well as a pre-requisite for normal social functioning and more complex socio-cognitive abilities [2]. Despite widespread interest in how social species perceive attention in others, studies of non-human animals have been inconclusive about the detailed cues involved [3]. Previous work has focused on head and eye direction, overlooking the fact that many mammals have obvious and mobile ears that could act as a visual cue to attention. Here we report that horses use the head orientation of a conspecific to locate food, but that this ability is disrupted when parts of the face (the eyes and ears) are covered up with naturalistic masks. The ability to correctly judge attention also interacted with the identity of the model horse, suggesting that individual differences in facial features may influence the salience of cues. Our results indicate that a combination of head orientation with facial expression, specifically involving both the eyes and ears, is necessary for communicating social attention. These findings emphasise that in order to understand how attention is communicated in non-human animals, it is essential to consider a broad range of cues.
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Proops, L., Grounds, K., Smith, A. V., & McComb, K. (2018). Animals Remember Previous Facial Expressions that Specific Humans Have Exhibited. Current Biology, 28(9), 1428–1432.e4.
Abstract: Summary For humans, facial expressions are important social signals, and how we perceive specific individuals may be influenced by subtle emotional cues that they have given us in past encounters. A wide range of animal species are also capable of discriminating the emotions of others through facial expressions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], and it is clear that remembering emotional experiences with specific individuals could have clear benefits for social bonding and aggression avoidance when these individuals are encountered again. Although there is evidence that non-human animals are capable of remembering the identity of individuals who have directly harmed them [6, 7], it is not known whether animals can form lasting memories of specific individuals simply by observing subtle emotional expressions that they exhibit on their faces. Here we conducted controlled experiments in which domestic horses were presented with a photograph of an angry or happy human face and several hours later saw the person who had given the expression in a neutral state. Short-term exposure to the facial expression was enough to generate clear differences in subsequent responses to that individual (but not to a different mismatched person), consistent with the past angry expression having been perceived negatively and the happy expression positively. Both humans were blind to the photograph that the horses had seen. Our results provide clear evidence that some non-human animals can effectively eavesdrop on the emotional state cues that humans reveal on a moment-to-moment basis, using their memory of these to guide future interactions with particular individuals.
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McComb, K., & Clutton-Brock, T. (1994). Is mate choice copying or aggregation responsible for skewed distributions of females on leks? Proc Biol Sci, 255(1342), 13–19.
Abstract: In several lek-breeding populations of birds and mammals, females arriving on leks tend to join males that already have females in their territories. This might occur either because females have an evolved preference for mating with males that are attractive to other females, or because they join groups of other females to obtain greater safety from predation or dangerous harassment by males. We have previously used controlled experiments to show that oestrous fallow deer females join males with established harems because they are attracted to female groups rather than to the males themselves. Here we demonstrate that the preference for males with females over males without females is specific to oestrous females and weak or absent in anoestrous ones, and that it is not associated with a preference for mating with males that have previously been seen to mate with other females. Furthermore, oestrous females given the choice between males that do not already have females with them show no significant preference for antlered over deantlered males or for older males over younger ones. We conclude that female attraction to other females on the lek is likely to be an adaptation to avoiding harassment in mixed-sex herds. In this situation, a male's ability to maintain the cohesion of his harem may be the principal cause of variation in mating success between males.
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