Exploring horse (Equus caballus) spontaneous gaze and ear position in relation to human attentional state

GUILLÉN SALAZAR FEDERICO; BARRERA GABRIELA ; ALBIACH SERRANO ANNA

Granada

Congreso; III Congreso Internacional de Psicobiología; 2019

Studies have shown that horses are sensitive to humans‟ attentional state. Also, it has been suggested that they might use their gaze and ears position as communicative behaviors in this context. The aim of the present study was to evaluate this. Eighteen horses were presented with 4 conditions where an unknown experimenter stood in an attentive position with food (A) and without food (B), and in a non-attentive position with food (C), and without food (D). We measured both gaze duration and whether the subject looked at the stimulus directly or had a right (RB) or a left (LB) gaze bias. We also measured the duration of ears‟ position (asymmetric, both ears forward and both ears back). Subjects looked longer in those conditions where the experimenter was attentive (A,B) compared to when she was not (C,D). Moreover, when the experimenter was attentive, horses looked longer in A than in B condition. Furthermore horses looked for a longer time directly than with a RB in all conditions. We also observed longer duration of ears back in B than in A and C conditions, as well as longer duration of asymmetric ears in C than in the other conditions.These results provide further evidence that horses are able to discriminate humans‟ attentional state and suggest that they might use their gaze as a communicative behavior, whereas gaze direction and ears position could be indicators of animal‟s emotional state in this context.