Horses are highly social prey animals whose survival depends on their ability to accurately interpret cues in the environment, whether to identify predators or protect the social cohesion within their band.
It is vital for the horse’s survival to be able to recognise visual cues and respond to emotional changes. For example, if another horse pins its ears back or points their nose at them, the horse can react appropriately.
Researchers are interested in finding out whether horses can recognise human emotion.
Multiple studies have investigated whether horses can recognise emotional valence in human body language. The consensus is that they do, and are very good at doing so. Maybe even better than us at recognising ours!
In a British study conducted in 2017, Amy Smith and colleagues discovered that horses are more likely to approach a person with a submissive (closed) posture than one of dominance (open). No horses favoured a dominant (open) posture.
Other studies, using similar methods, have shown that horses can recognise emotions in voice and facial expressions, even if they aren’t directed at them.
Milena Trosch, together with her colleagues in 2019, presented horses an audio recording of a happy voice and an angry voice. It is not surprising that the horses were more alert during the angry voice and more relaxed during a joyful voice. The heart rate increased when the angry voice was played back, indicating a stress reaction.
In order to add another twist, and show how well horses can identify our emotions, the researchers in the same study presented pictures of horses with angry and joyous expressions. They also played audio files that did NOT match those expressions as well as pictures that did match. The study found that the horses looked and investigated the images and audios which did not match for a longer period of time.
Researchers explain that horses’ interest in the mismatch between voice and facial expression suggests that they can recognize human emotion.
How does this all affect our relationship with horses?
Dr Lea Lansade was surprised to learn that “even a groaning of discontent caused the horses’ heart rate shoot up… and even a smile can appease them”.
Dr Lansade recommends that we manage our emotions when we are around our horses.
Researchers have shown that horses not only recognise emotions, but also remember and can discriminate between people based on their past experiences.
Serenella D’Ingeo, her team and Leanne Proops (2019) conducted studies that showed horses will react according to the past experiences they had with someone. They will pin their ears towards a person with whom they had mostly or only had negative experiences.
What can we learn about the research?
You can think of your relationship with your horse as a piggybank and every interaction as a coin of trust.
We can build a wonderful trust account by putting trust coins into our piggy banks every time we have a positive experience.
Each negative interaction, on the other hand, is equivalent to taking two coins out of the piggybank. This is because bad experiences ‘worth more’ than positive ones.
You may even go into the negative if you continue to take money from your piggy bank.
Every interaction that you have with your horses adds to or subtracts from the trust. Your horse will learn from everything you do, whether it’s taking them to a new yard or arguing on the phone with someone while they are there.
Horses constantly learn about the positives as well as negatives of their environment. They may be better at it than we are. We must be aware of the emotional value of our interactions and how much money we put in or take out of our trust fund. We need to do everything we can in order to keep our piggy bank balanced and positive.
Understanding how your emotions and mood affect your relationship with your horse and managing them while you are with them will help to keep their trust healthy.
