Carol Sankey

Positive interactions lead to lasting positive memories in horses, Equus caballus

Social relationships are important in social species. These relationships, based on repeated interactions, define each partners expectations during the following encounters. The creation of a relationship implies high social cognitive abilities which require that each partner is able to associate the positive or negative content of an interaction with a specific partner and to recall this association. In this study, we tested the effects of repeated interactions on the memory kept by 23 young horses about humans, after 6 and 8 months of separation. The association of a reward with a learning task in an interactional context induced positive reactions towards humans during training. It also increased contact and interest, not only just after training, but also several months later, despite no further interaction with humans. In addition, this ‘positive memory’ of humans extended to novel persons. Overall, positive reinforcement enhanced learning and memorization of the task itself. These findings suggest remarkable social cognitive abilities that can be transposed from intraspecific to interspecific social contexts.

How horses (Equus caballus) see the world: humans as significant “objects”

This study aimed to determine whether horses have a kind of memory of humans (based on previous interactions), leading to a general significance of humans revealed by their reactions to humans in subsequent interactions. Subjects were 59 adult horses used to interact daily with humans. Three types of behavioural tests involving an unknown experimenter evaluated three possibly different memorized types of human–animal interactions (not work-related, using work-related objects, unfamiliar working task). We also performed standardized observations of routine interactions between each horse and its familiar handler (caretaker). To get a broad overview of the horses’ reactions to humans, we recorded both investigative and aggressive behaviours during the tests, representing respectively a “positive” and a “negative” memory of the relationship. Whereas correlations between tests revealed a general perception of humans as either positive or negative, unusual tests, i.e. that are not usually performed, elicited more positive reactions. Moreover, some horses reacted positively to a motionless person in their box, but negatively when this same person approached them, for example for halter fitting. Overall, aggressive reactions were more reliable indicators of the relationship than positive reactions, both between tests and between familiar and unfamiliar humans. Our results also show generalization of the perception of humans. These results support our hypothesis that perception of humans by horses may be based on experience, i.e. repeated interactions. Altogether, our results support the hypothesis that horses can form a memory of humans that impacts their reactions in subsequent interactions.

Adults may be used to alleviate weaning stress in domestic foals (Equus caballus).

The present study aims to investigate whether the presence of unrelated adult horses at weaning would reduce the social stress of weaning and the emergence of undesirable behaviours. We tested this hypothesis in 32 domestic foals by comparing short and medium term behavioural and physiological responses to weaning in foals maintained in homogeneous groups of peers (PW) to those of foals grouped with both peers and unrelated adults (AW). In total, three trials were conducted, which each trial consisting of one AW group and one PW group. In all foals, weaning was followed by increased vocalization, increased locomotion and increased salivary cortisol concentration. However, signs of stress were less pronounced and shorter in duration in weanlings housed with unrelated adults (e.g., whinnies: p<0.05; salivary cortisol: p<0.05). Only foals without adults exhibited increased aggressiveness towards peers (p<0.05) and abnormal behaviours (p<0.05) such as excessive wood-chewing and redirected sucking towards peers. In conclusion, introducing adults to minimize weaning stress in foals and later on aggressiveness and abnormal behaviours appears as the most promising approach to date.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach: what about horses?

Background How do we bond to one another? While in some species, like humans, physical contact plays a role in the process of attachment, it has been suggested that tactile contacts value may greatly differ according to the species considered. Nevertheless, grooming is often considered as a pleasurable experience for domestic animals, even though scientific data is lacking. On another hand, food seems to be involved in the creation of most relationships in a variety of species. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, we used the horse training context to test the effects of food versus grooming during repeated human-horse interactions. The results reveal that food certainly holds a key role in the attachment process, while tactile contact was here clearly insufficient for bonding to occur. Conclusion/Significance This study raises important questions on the way tactile contact is perceived, and shows that large inter-species differences are to be expected.

Do horses expect humans to solve their problems

Domestic animals are highly capable of detecting human cues, while wild relatives tend to perform less well (e.g., responding to pointing gestures). It is suggested that domestication may have led to the development of such cognitive skills. Here, we hypothesized that because domestic animals are so attentive and dependant to humans’ actions for resources, the counter effect may be a decline of self sufficiency, such as individual task solving. Here we show a negative correlation between the performance in a learning task (opening a chest) and the interest shown by horses toward humans, despite high motivation expressed by investigative behaviors directed at the chest. If human-directed attention reflects the development of particular skills in domestic animals, this is to our knowledge the first study highlighting a link between human-directed behaviors and impaired individual solving task skills (ability to solve a task by themselves) in horses.

Locomotor Inhibition in Adult Horses Faced to Stressors: A Single Postpartum Experience May be Enough!

Despite the number of postpartum handling that a newborn experiences, few studies focus on their long-term consequences. In rats, regular long separations from the mother, during the early life, led to modifications of the locomotor activity when the animal is confronted to a stressor. In horses, one component of the behavioral response to stressful situation is active locomotion. We wondered if the routine postpartum handling undergone by foals, would affect their level of reactivity or the way they express their stress, when older. One single prolonged bout of handling just after birth clearly affected later adult expression of stress reactivity. In social separation associated with novelty, handled, and unhandled horses produced an equal amount of whinnies, showing a similar vocal response to stress. However, both groups differed in their locomotor response to the situations. Early handled foals expressed less of the active forms of locomotion than the control group. Our findings highlight the need of further reflections on long-term effects of routine handlings procedures close to birth.

Psychological Predictors of Intensive Practice of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) are video games with special characteristics, which are a persistent immersive online virtual world with the creation of an avatar and an important social aspect. These specificities raise the question of the need for some players to practice intensively and to neglect the real world in favor of the virtual one. The aim of this study was to determine predictive factors for intensive practice of MMORPG. 313 regular MMORPG adult players were recruited on specialized forums. They completed several questionnaires: Beck Depression Inventory, Spielberger Inventory of State-Trait Anxiety, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale, Interpersonal Relationships Quality Scale, Feeling of Social Belonging Scale, and Problem Video Game Playing Questionnaire and Internet Addiction Test to assess the intensity of practice. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis highlighted that intensive practice of MMORPG can be significantly predicted by the age of the player (b = -0.134), depressive symptoms (b = 0.313) and feeling of social belonging (b = -0.186). These results highlighted the link between intrapersonal (anxiety, depressive symptoms, self-esteem, life satisfaction) and interpersonal (quality of relationships, feeling of social belonging) difficulties and the intensity of practice of MMORPG.