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Could the Visual Differential Attention Be a Referential Gesture? A Study on Horses (Equus caballus) on the Impossible Task Paradigm.
Abstract: In order to explore the decision-making processes of horses, we designed an impossible task paradigm aimed at causing an expectancy violation in horses. Our goals were to verify whether this paradigm is effective in horses by analyzing their motivation in trying to solve the task and the mode of the potential helping request in such a context. In the first experiment, 30 horses were subjected to three consecutive conditions: no food condition where two persons were positioned at either side of a table in front of the stall, solvable condition when a researcher placed a reachable reward on the table, and the impossible condition when the food was placed farther away and was unreachable by the horse. Eighteen horses were used in the second experiment with similar solvable and impossible conditions but in the absence of people. We measured the direction of the horse's ear cup as an indicator of its visual attention in terms of visual selective attention (VSA) when both ears were directed at the same target and the visual differential attention (VDA) when the ears were directed differentially to the persons and to the table. We also included tactile interaction toward table and people, the olfactory exploration of the table, and the frustration behaviors in the ethogram. In the first experiment, the VDA was the most frequent behavior following the expectancy violation. In the second experiment, horses showed the VDA behavior mostly when people and the unreachable resource were present at the same time. We speculate that the VDA could be a referential gesture aimed to link the solution of the task to the people, as a request for help.
Publication Date: 2018-07-17 PubMed ID: 30018209PubMed Central: PMC6071011DOI: 10.3390/ani8070120Google Scholar: Lookup The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
- Journal Article
Summary
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The research article is about exploring the decision-making processes in horses using an “impossible task paradigm”. The hypothesis is that horses may use visual differential attention (VDA) as a referential gesture or request for help when faced with an unsolvable problem.
Understanding the Research
To get a clearer insight into how horses make decisions, the researchers utilized an “impossible task paradigm”. This is a scenario meant to baffle horses and test their reactions. The study has two key goals:
- Confirming whether the impossible task paradigm is effective with horses.
- Examining how horses may ask for help in such a complex context by analyzing their motivation in trying to solve the task and the mode of the potential helping request.
Methodology
The study involved two experiments featuring different scenarios to test decision-making processes of the horses:
- The first experiment engaged thirty horses in three sequential conditions: no food, solvable condition (a reachable reward placed on a table), and the impossible condition (an unreachable food item).
- The second experiment involved another set of eighteen horses with similar conditions, but with no human-presence.
Parameters Observed
The team analyzed the direction of the horse’s “ear cup” to understand the visual attention of a horse during these conditions. They evaluated:
- Visual Selective Attention (VSA): Where both ears are tuned to the same target.
- Visual Differential Attention (VDA): Ears directed differentially to the persons and the table – possibly indicative of asking for help.
- Tactile interactions towards the table and humans.
- The olfactory exploration of the table – how the horse uses its sense of smell to analyze the table.
- The frustration behaviors – observable actions taken by the horse perceived due to frustration.
Study Findings
Experiment 1 showed VDA as the predominant behavior following the expectancy violation, while in Experiment 2, horses exhibited VDA behavior when humans and the unreachable resource coexisted. The researchers concluded that the VDA may be a referential gesture used by horses to establish a connection between the problem and the human beings present, as if asking for help.
Cite This Article
APA
Alterisio A, Baragli P, Aria M, D'Aniello B, Scandurra A.
(2018).
Could the Visual Differential Attention Be a Referential Gesture? A Study on Horses (Equus caballus) on the Impossible Task Paradigm.
Animals (Basel), 8(7), 120.
https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8070120 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy. alessandra.alterisio@unina.it.
- Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy. paolo.baragli@unipi.it.
- Department of Economics and Statistics, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy. aria@unina.it.
- Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy. biagio.daniello@unina.it.
- Department of Biology, University of Naples Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy. annascan@hotmail.it.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
References
This article includes 12 references
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Citations
This article has been cited 10 times.- Scandurra A, Di Lucrezia A, D'Aniello B, Pinelli C. Home Sweet Home: The Impact of Lifestyle on a Cat's Approach to Impossible Tasks in the Home Environment. Animals (Basel) 2023 Aug 20;13(16).
- Pinelli C, Scandurra A, Mastellone V, Iommelli P, Musco N, Pero ME, Di Lucrezia A, Lotito D, Tudisco R, D'Aniello B, Infascelli F, Lombardi P. Serum Oxytocin, Cortisol and Social Behavior in Calves: A Study in the Impossible Task Paradigm. Animals (Basel) 2023 Feb 13;13(4).
- D'Aniello B, Mastellone V, Pinelli C, Scandurra A, Musco N, Tudisco R, Pero ME, Infascelli F, Di Lucrezia A, Lombardi P. Serum Oxytocin in Cows Is Positively Correlated with Caregiver Interactions in the Impossible Task Paradigm. Animals (Basel) 2022 Jan 23;12(3).
- Yoshida N, Koda N. Goats' Performance in Unsolvable Tasks Is Predicted by Their Reactivity Toward Humans, but Not Social Rank. Front Psychol 2020;11:150.
- Maglieri V, Prato-Previde E, Tommasi E, Palagi E. Wolf-like or dog-like? A comparison of gazing behaviour across three dog breeds tested in their familiar environments. R Soc Open Sci 2019 Sep;6(9):190946.
- Henriksson J, Sauveroche M, Roth LSV. Effects of size and personality on social learning and human-directed behaviour in horses (Equus caballus). Anim Cogn 2019 Nov;22(6):1001-1011.
- Di Lucrezia A, Scandurra A, Lotito D, Iervolino V, D'Aniello B, Mastellone V, Lombardi P, Pinelli C. The power of interspecific sociality: how humans provide social buffering for horses. Anim Cogn 2025 Mar 12;28(1):20.
- Barrera G, Albiach-Serrano A, Guillén-Salazar F. Exploring horses' (Equus caballus) gaze and asymmetric ear position in relation to human attentional cues. Anim Cogn 2024 Oct 22;27(1):67.
- Zeng Y, Baciadonna L, Davies JR, Pilenga C, Favaro L, Garcia-Pelegrin E. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) display gaze alternation and referential communication in an impossible task. Heliyon 2024 Jun 30;10(12):e33192.
- Hirschi A, Mazzini A, Riemer S. Disentangling help-seeking and giving up: differential human-directed gazing by dogs in a modified unsolvable task paradigm. Anim Cogn 2022 Aug;25(4):821-836.
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