Horses Can See Emotions in Our Face and Voice–and Have a Preference, Reveals New Study

Summary

  • Horses are very sensitive to human emotions, including both outward emotions such as joy and anger, and inward emotions such as sadness.
  • This emotional sensitivity is not limited to facial expressions, but also extends to the sounds coming from the individual whom the horse is observing.
  • Horses are able to associate human expressions of sadness with the corresponding sounds, as they do with joy and anger.
  • When a horse sees a joyful face and hears sad sounds, or vice versa, the horse becomes confused and its attention is drawn to the images for much longer.
  • Horses tend to remain fixated on the joyful human expression, and their heart rate also rises during this time.
  • The researchers believe that this is because the joyful imagery tends to have more colors and movement, or because it is associated with joyful expressions that the horse has observed in its life and relates to pleasant memories.
  • The researchers plan to continue investigating horses’ abilities to detect sadness, particularly whether they can detect sadness amongst other negative emotions.

See more details in: monyet.cc/post/464189

mookulator,

I’m not surprised by this at all. Every domesticated animal I’ve ever met has the sensitivity to discern human emotions. I always considered it part of the prerequisites for domestication.

aeternum,

Why do you eat them then?

mookulator,

I do not eat horses

narrowide96lochkreis,

What about chickens?

mookulator,

Yeah that’s a good example. Never met a chicken like that

ivanafterall,
@ivanafterall@kbin.social avatar

The researchers plan to continue investigating horses’ abilities to detect sadness, particularly whether they can detect sadness amongst other negative emotions.

Researcher: "DO YOU EVEN CARE THAT I'M HURTING!?"

Horse:

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

among other negative emotions

“You dumb horse! You’re a pile of manure and I hate you!”

Horse becomes aroused

agamemnonymous,
@agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works avatar

My question: does this say more about the sensitivity of horse perception, or the intensity of human expression?

Slowy,
@Slowy@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t know which aspect is stronger for certain but emotions are a very base thing. Humans can definitely intellectualize our emotions way more and create a lot of emotional nuance that way. But it seems reasonable that pure emotional intensity, and probably sometimes emotional perception (with less nuance) as well, could be stronger in some other highly social animals.

T156,

Could be neither, and that learning to read the other’s emotions is helpful for domestication. Humans can read horse, much like Horses can read human.

andyburke,
@andyburke@kbin.social avatar

I think this has a lot to do with the horses we have bred.

Transcendant,

Horses always seem to me like big dogs, they have such distinct personalities, and I’ve seen them do all sorts of funny things (seemingly just for the hell of it).

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