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Author (up) Lansade, L.; Colson, V.; Parias, C.; Trösch, M.; Reigner, F.; Calandreau, L.
Title Female horses spontaneously identify a photograph of their keeper, last seen six months previously Type Journal Article
Year 2020 Publication Scientific Reports Abbreviated Journal
Volume 10 Issue 1 Pages 6302
Keywords
Abstract Horses are capable of identifying individual conspecifics based on olfactory, auditory or visual cues. However, this raises the questions of their ability to recognize human beings and on the basis of what cues. This study investigated whether horses could differentiate between a familiar and unfamiliar human from photographs of faces. Eleven horses were trained on a discrimination task using a computer-controlled screen, on which two photographs were presented simultaneously (32 trials/session): touching one was rewarded (S+) and the other not (S-). In the training phase, the S+ faces were of four unfamiliar people which gradually became familiar over the trials. The S- faces were novel for each trial. After the training phase, the faces of the horses' keepers were presented opposite novel faces to test whether the horses could identify the former spontaneously. A reward was given whichever face was touched to avoid any possible learning effect. Horses touched the faces of keepers significantly more than chance, whether it was their current keeper or one they had not seen for six months (t = 3.65; p < 0.004 and t = 6.24; p < 0.0001). Overall, these results show that horses have advanced human face-recognition abilities and a long-term memory of those human faces.
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Language Summary Language Original Title
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Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 2045-2322 ISBN Medium
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Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Lansade2020 Serial 6623
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