Study of the self and the other in
social heterospecific cognition in horses:
study of the sensitivity of the
horse to the body orientation and the faces of others when
using visual signals
Horses appear to be sensitive
human attentional states (Proops & Mc Comb, 2010) and able
to read human
bodily attentional signals including body and head orientation
and subtle eye
cues (Proops and McComb 2010, Krueger et al. 2011; Maros et al.
2008; Sankey et
al. 2011).
Yet little is known how
far horses are using these
attentional cues to adapt their behavior. A recent study
(Ringhofer M. &
Yamamoto, S, 2017) suggest that horses alter their
communicative behaviour
towards humans in accordance with humans’ knowledge state
suggesting that
horses possess some cognitive basis for this ability of
understanding others’
knowledge state in social communication with humans.
Moreover, how horses
understand what humans see or not is yet unclear (the visual
field of humans
and horses are quite different).
In this study we aim at investigating
how horses adapt their communicative behavior to the attentional
state of
humans.
The items will be:
·
Identify
the communicative cues of the horses (body language, mimicking)
for asking for
food they cannot reach by themselves
·
Investigate
if horses adapt their communicative behavior to human
attentional state
·
How
horses understand what humans see or not
·
Investigate
the feasibility of using FNIRS spectroscopy to investigate brain
activities and
cognition in horses
The research will be
conducted at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Faculty of
Medecine with the collaboration
of the Haras du Chaimont
(1460 Ittre,
Belgique).
The duration
of the study will fit with a
master I research stage of 6-8 weeks. Start: ASAP.
Contact: Claude TOMBERG: ctomberg@ulb.ac.be