Krueger Konstanze, Roll Anika, Beyer Anna J, Föll Angela, Bernau Maren, Farmer Kate
Department of Equine Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Economics and Management, Nuertingen-Geislingen University, Neckarsteige 6-10, 72622, Nürtingen, Germany.
Zoology/Evolutionary Biology, University of Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93053, Regensburg, Germany.
Anim Cogn. 2025 Mar 17;28(1):23. doi: 10.1007/s10071-025-01946-1.
When animals observe human signals, they may learn from them. Such learning from humans has been reported for intentional communication between humans with animals, but animals might also learn socially by observing unintentional information transfer when eavesdropping on humans-human encounters. In this study, 12 of 17 horses significantly changed their preference for a feeding location after observing approval in a human-human interaction there, and horses kept in social housing adapted in a higher percentage of trials to human-human demonstrations than those in individual housing. This indicates, for the first time, that some animals change their feeding strategies after eavesdropping on human-human demonstrations and that this adaptation may be dependent on social experience. As horses maintained the observed preference for a feeding location when the demonstrators were absent, we suggest that they learned by applying individual and social learning mechanisms. The horses social rank, age and sex did not affect their learning performance. However, particular demonstrators tended to have a stronger impact on the horses' performance. Future research should further investigate the durability of this preference change in the absence of repeated demonstrations, and establish whether long-term social learning sets in. This would have important implications for unintentional long-term impacts of human interactions on interspecies communication.
当动物观察人类信号时，它们可能会从中学习。这种向人类学习的现象已在人类与动物之间的有意交流中有所报道，但动物也可能通过在偷听人类之间的互动时观察无意的信息传递来进行社会学习。在本研究中，17匹马中有12匹在观察到人类之间在某一喂食地点的互动获得认可后，显著改变了它们对该喂食地点的偏好，并且群居的马在更多比例的试验中能适应人类之间的示范行为，相比单独饲养的马。这首次表明，一些动物在偷听人类之间的示范行为后会改变它们的进食策略，并且这种适应可能依赖于社会经验。由于当示范者不在场时，马仍保持对观察到的喂食地点的偏好，我们认为它们是通过应用个体学习和社会学习机制来学习的。马的社会等级、年龄和性别并未影响它们的学习表现。然而，特定的示范者往往对马的表现有更强的影响。未来的研究应进一步调查在没有重复示范的情况下这种偏好变化的持久性，并确定长期的社会学习是否会发生。这将对人类互动对种间交流的无意长期影响具有重要意义。
