Comprehension of human pointing gestures in horses (Equus caballus).

The research paper explores the capability of twenty domestic horses to understand various types of human gestures and correctly identify where food is hidden based on these gestures. However, the horses’ comprehension of a specific pointing gesture (distal momentary pointing) remained unclear.

Research Methodology

• The study involved twenty domestic horses, which were tested on their ability to decipher differing human gestures in a two-way object choice task.
• An experimenter hid food under one of two bowls, and after hiding the food, pointed to its location using one of four differing gestures.

Key Findings

• The horses were able to locate the hidden food based on distal dynamic-sustained, proximal momentary and proximal dynamic-sustained pointing gestures.
• However, the horses could not perform above a chance level when a distal momentary pointing gesture was used.
• The research indicated that horses could spontaneously respond to cues that could provide a stimulus or local enhancement effect, but their comprehension of the distal momentary pointing gesture was unclear.

Discussion of Findings

• The paper discusses the results with reference to various factors such as predisposition to read human visual cues, the effect of domestication, extensive social experience, and the nature of the gesture used by the experimenter.
• These factors are reviewed in comparative investigations to assess the horses’ potential understanding of and response to human gesture forms.