IFM Biology, AVIAN Behavioural Genomics and Physiology Group, Linköping University, 581 83, Linköping, Sweden.
Anim Cogn. 2019 Nov;22(6):1001-1011. doi: 10.1007/s10071-019-01291-0. Epub 2019 Jul 16.
Due to our long history of living in close association with horses, these animals are suggested to have enhanced skills in understanding and communicating with humans. Today, horses have become important to humans for sport and leisure and their understanding of human behaviour and their human-directed behaviour are therefore of great importance. In this study, we investigated 22 horses in a human contact-seeking experiment where they were presented with an unsolvable problem and a detour experiment with a human demonstrator. The unsolvable problem consisted of pieces of carrot in a closed bucket and the detour resembled the shape of V. Additionally, personality traits of the participating horses were assessed. Interestingly, the full-sized horses (N = 11) showed more human-related behaviours when presented with an unsolvable problem compared to before the carrots were made unreachable (p = 0.033), while the ponies (N = 11) did not. However, neither the full-sized horses nor the ponies were significantly more successful in the detour after human demonstrations than in control trials. When comparing the two experiments, we found the task-oriented behaviour in the detour test to positively correlate with human proximity and eye contact-seeking behaviour towards humans during the unsolvable problem in the contact-seeking test. Interestingly, again this was only true for the full-sized horses (p < 0.05) and not for the ponies. From the horse personality questionnaire results, the traits excitability and anxiousness revealed strong negative correlations with human-directed behaviour in the contact-seeking experiment (p < 0.05). Hence, size (full-sized horse/pony) and personality influenced the human-related behaviours of the horses and we suggest a future focus on these aspects to deepen our understanding of human-horse communication.
由于我们长期与马密切生活在一起，这些动物被认为在理解和与人类交流方面具有更强的能力。如今，马在人类的运动和休闲中变得非常重要，因此它们对人类行为的理解以及它们指向人类的行为具有重要意义。在这项研究中，我们在一项人类寻求接触的实验中研究了 22 匹马，在该实验中，马会遇到一个无法解决的问题和一个带有人类示范者的绕道实验。无法解决的问题是将胡萝卜放在封闭的桶中，而绕道的形状类似于 V。此外，还评估了参与实验的马的个性特征。有趣的是，与胡萝卜变得无法触及之前相比，当呈现无法解决的问题时，全尺寸马（N=11）表现出更多与人类相关的行为（p=0.033），而小马（N=11）则没有。但是，无论是全尺寸马还是小马，在经过人类示范后，在绕道测试中都没有比对照试验更成功。当比较这两个实验时，我们发现绕道测试中的任务导向行为与接触寻求测试中无法解决问题期间马对人类的接近度和寻求眼神接触行为呈正相关。有趣的是，这仅对全尺寸马（p<0.05）有效，而对小马则不成立。从马个性问卷的结果来看，兴奋和焦虑这两个特质与接触寻求实验中的指向人类行为呈强烈负相关（p<0.05）。因此，体型（全尺寸马/小马）和个性影响了马的人类相关行为，我们建议未来关注这些方面，以加深对人类与马交流的理解。
