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: https://monyet.cc/post/464189

  • ivanafterall@kbin.social
    20·
    11 months ago

    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:

  • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    11 months ago

    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).

  • mookulator@mander.xyzEnglish
    15·
    11 months ago

    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.

    • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      11 months ago

      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.

    • Slowy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      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.