Can Horses Recognize Body Language in Humans?

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1 The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation Volume 50 Issue 1 Article Can Horses Recognize Body Language in Humans? Paige Van Westerop Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Van Westerop, Paige (2012) "Can Horses Recognize Body Language in Humans?," The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation: Vol. 50 : Iss. 1, Article 10. Available at: This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Psychology at Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Huron University College Journal of Learning and Motivation by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact tadam@uwo.ca, wlswadmin@uwo.ca.

2 Can Horses Recognize Body Language in Humans? Paige Van Westerop Huron University College Previous research has indicted some animals have the ability to recognize and react to different body language in humans (Udell et al.). The purpose of this study is to see if horses are also able to make this distinction. By testing two adult horses separately allowing them to choose between two experimenters, one in a neutral position and one in one of four predetermined positions: back turned, covered face, head in hands, and arms raised. It was found that the horses were not able to accurately choose between the two experimenters and the hypothesis was proved incorrect. Horses have been an invaluable resource to humans for thousands of years; their importance to the technological advances to the human world are many and they have helped to shape the world into what it is today. Even though these animals have aided humans throughout history there is still much that is unknown about the inner workings of the horses' mind. People who have worked with horses are aware that they are very perceptive and intuitive creatures. There are many stories about horses helping people in need and almost every person who has worked with horses has a story about how a horse can tell the difference between people and how confident the person is as a rider. It is said that a horse can feel what you are feeling and this has been proved many times. Horses and humans have a very specific method of communication through body language, sounds, and touching. A language between horses and humans has been created and successfully used for centuries and it will continue to be used for many more. The more that people know about communicating with horses the

3 better horse-human interactions will be. In Brandt's 2004 study on the communication between people and horses she found that many people who have been around horses for a long time learn to be "hyperaware" of their body and how they use it because it can have a direct effect on the horse. She says that horses have highly sensitive bodies and pay close attention to how other animals and humans move in order to properly communicate and understand them. Birke, Hockenhull, Creighton, Pinno, Mee, and Mills (2011) studied the behaviour of horses when approached by humans in different ways. They found that horses are more likely to flee from an approaching person if the person moves fast, directly towards the horse from the front, with direct eye contact, and if there person is swinging a rope. This suggests that the horses have a preference to how they like to be approached and they can recognize small differences in body language and will respond to the changes. This experiment was based on a study by Udell, Dorey, and Wynne [2011) on if dogs and wolves can recognize changes in human body language and make informed decisions about which body positioning they are more interested in approaching. By recording if the dogs and wolves approached four different positions over someone standing in a neutral position this theory was tested. The four conditions were back turned, holding a book, holding a camera, and a bucket over their heads. It was found that the dogs and wolves performed significantly above chance on the back turned position and the dogs performed significantly above chance on the book condition. However they found little significance in dogs and wolves in both the camera and bucket over head positions. By modifying this

4 test to horses the same general idea was tested. If horses can recognize body language in humans. By testing the horses on four positions the answer will be found. The positions include back turned, paper over face, crouched down with head in hands, and arms above the head staring directly into the horses' eyes. These positions are meant to reflect four different attitudes a human might have and how they will affect a horse. The positions are supposed to represent uninterested for back turned, distracted with paper over face, aggressive with arms raised staring into the horses eyes, and vulnerable/ submissive crouched down with head in hands. Method Subjects The subjects for this study included two horses (^Equus caballus) of the Quarter Horse breed. The subjects included one 10 year-old male (Stepper) and one 18 year-old female (Ching). The horses are housed in their regular stalls during the night and out in a grass pasture during the day. The stalls are cm by cm and are made of wooden walls and vertical steel bars with a glass window in the back of the stall to outside and an opening on the stall door for the horses to put their heads out if they wish. The steel bars are 2 cm wide and 2.5 cm spaces in between the bars. The window in the back of the stall was 30 cm high and 60 cm wide and the space in the stall door was 60 cm wide and 90 cm high. The stalls contain two 5 gallon plastic buckets, one which holds feed and one which holds water. They are hooked to the wall with a metal hook and sit against the front wall

5 of the stalls the hooks are fastened 120 cm of the ground. The floor of the stall is covered with rubber mats and is then covered with wood shavings to absorb moisture. They are fed regular horse hay and ad lib. Purina Evolution Elite as well as ad lib. water. When outside the horses are free in a ten acre pasture with trees, grass, and a building for shelter. The pasture is fenced in by a combination of wooden fencing painted black and white electric braided nylon rope. There is one large water trough always available to the horses and the grass is free for them to eat at will. The horses do not have any experimental history and have only been used for riding horses. Setting The experiment will take place in an indoor arena that the horses are very comfortable in. The arena measures 21 m wide and 43 m long, it is made of wood and steel with large windows along the walls to let in light. The ground in the arena is a mixture of topsoil and dirt. The actual testing will use three orange plastic pylons to mark where each experimenter will stand and where the horse will be held before they are released. One sheet of regular paper will also be used in the covered face condition. Apples cut into small pieces are to be used as the food incentive for the horses. Procedure The horses will first be exposed to pre-training where they will be first lead to the experimenters to see that they have apples then they will be given four

6 opportunities to approach the experimenters and eat apples from their hands. During this time one of the two experimenters will be randomly chosen at separate times for the horses to approach ensuring the horse is not simply choosing one experimenter over the other. The experimenters will be randomly switched until the horse is exposed to the experimenters four times. The horse will then be held 20 feet away by another experimenter and will be released as both experimenters call the horse by name to get their attention. During the testing the horse will again be held 20 feet away from the two experimenters who will be standing 20 feet away from each other, one experimenter will stand in the non-aggressive position with their arms at their sides facing the horse while the other stands in one of the four predetermined stances. The two experimenters will be randomly switched between being on the left and right side as well as changing the roles of the experimenters for each horse between being in the non-aggressive pose and the four predetermined poses. The experimenters remained silent during the testing so the horses were not distracted by noises. The horse will be released and allowed to approach either experimenter at their own discretion and when they walk up to either experimenter they will be presented with a food treat. The horses will be tested five times for each condition. The conditions that the experimenters will use include the experimenter standing with their back to the horses in a neutral position, holding a piece of paper over their faces with both hands, in a crouched position with their head in their hands, and with their arms raised staring directly into the horses eyes. This will be done in a large indoor arena that the horses are accustomed to and will take place after the horses have some time to walk around and roll so they are focused on the

7 experimenters when the testing begins. Testing was during the day with lights on in the area on a non-windy sunny day so there was no outside distractions for the horses. During the testing the other horse was tied to the wall on the other side of the arena so the horse being tested was at ease and not stressed by being alone. Results The results did not support the hypothesis that the horses could recognize the difference in human body language. Figure 1 shows that the results were not significant in showing whether the horses recognized the body language. The closest the horses came to performing significantly above chance was in the covered face position at 7/10 choices for the neutral experimenter. In the back turned position the horses performed with 6/10 choices for the neutral experimenter. For head in hands the horse chose the neutral experimenter 4/10 times and for the arms raised position the horses performed completely at chance with 5/10 choices for the neutral position. Using a chi squared test the significance was tested for each condition. For back turned {x^[l) = 0.80, ^ > 0.05), for paper {x^{l) = 0.32, u > 0.05), for head in hands (x^fl) = 0.80, c > 0.05), and for arms raised (x2(l) = 0.00, u > 0.05)

8 Figure 1. Choices /10 of Behahaviours

9 Stepper 3' Four training tests completed Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5 Back Turned Back Back Neutral Back Neutral Covered Face Neutral Neutral Covered Neutral Neutral Hands Neutral Neutral Hands Hands Hands Raised Neutral Raised Raised Neutral Neutral Ching B' Four training tests completed Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 4 Trial 5 Back Turned Neutral Back Neutral Neutral Neutral Covered Face Covered Neutral Covered Neutral Neutral Hands Hands Neutral Neutral Hands Hands Raised Raised Raised Raised Neutral Neutral

10 Discussion The hypothesis of this study was that horses could recognize body language in humans and make a choice between them. The results from the experiment indicated that the hypothesis was not supported. The horses did not perform as expected by making a distinction between human body language. Though the experiment suggested that the hypothesis was incorrect more studies should be carried out to ensure the accuracy of the results. The scientific adequacy must be evaluated to determine if the study was reliable in testing if horses can recognize body language in humans. There were many possible problems with this experiment. One of the biggest issues with the experiment was the sampling since it was very restricted. If more horses had been available to test on the results could have been more reliable and the finished data would be more concrete. Measurement was fairly reliable in this experiment because all the researchers needed to do was recording what the horses' choices were. The control was another issue to the adequacy of the data. It is possible that the horses just learned that they will receive an apple no matter which researcher they approached and did not pay any attention to the actual body language of the experimenters perhaps a way to fix this problem is to not always give an apple when the horse approaches or to do less trials on each horse so they do not have the time to understand the apples were always there. If the horses could be tested without using any apples and they just had to approach one of the two experimenters the problem could be solved, however then the problem arises of the horses not having any interest in approaching either of the experimenters

11 because there will be no motivation for them. Another reason the horses may not have paid attention to the experimenters body language could be because the horses are more intuitive than the study assumed and they saw the body language but did not believe it because the person was not actually feeling what the body language was supposed to be portraying (e.g. anger or aggression). This is a difficult issue to correct because it could be hard for an experimenter to act in a way that the horse will believe in. If the experimenters used noise or movement the portrayal may have been more believable, however the noises or movements could also act as a distraction or even scare the horse. Because the experimenters were people that the horses were familiar with they could be just picking the person they want to approach based on that. This was controlled by choosing two experimenters that the horses knew and liked equally well, however the fact that the horses knew the people could still be an issue. It would be preferable to use complete strangers for the horse to approach the only problem with that is that then a more timid horse might be less inclined to approach either experimenter because they were not comfortable with them or worse the horse could act aggressively towards a stranger and possible injure them. Though this experiment did not work out as expected it is still could hold value because horses are animals often used as therapy animals and to understand how horses understand humans and why they act in the ways that they do. It has long been said to people who know horses that they are very perceptive and are quick to notice what a person is feeling and act on it. The more testing is done on this subject the more we will know about the working or the horses' minds and we

12 will possibly be able to treat people more effectively using horses as a therapeutic tool. Another reason that this is a valuable experiment to learn from is that understanding how horses communicate and understand people will help increase the safety of people working with horses. The average human's weight is 10-15% of the average horses weight and finding ways to communicated effectively with these powerful animals could be an invaluable tool to allow horses and humans to interact in a safer way (Brandt 2004). If the experiment were more carefully constructed, it is likely that a different set of results would have been presented. Due to this it would be premature to ignore the possibility that there is still some credit to the hypothesis. It would be best for further studies to be done to see if horses really do have the possibility to recognize human body language and make informed decisions about it. The experiment should be repeated in a more reliable setting with more careful control and sampling elements to ensure the validity of results.

13 References Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Horses' Responses to Variation in Human Approach. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Society and Animals. A Language of Their Own: An Interactioninst approach to Human-Horse Communication. Retrieved April 5, 2012, Udell, M., Dorey, N., Wynne, C. (2011). Can Your Dog Read Your Mind? Understanding the Causes of Canine Perspective Taking. Psychonomic Society Inc.