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Home / Equine Research Bank / Animals (Basel) / Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate the Performance of H...
Animals : an open access journal from MDPI2018; 8(6); doi: 10.3390/ani8060096

Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate the Performance of Horses (Equus caballus) in a Spatial Problem-Solving Task.

Abstract: Horses’ ability to adapt to new environments and to acquire new information plays an important role in handling and training. Social learning in particular would be very adaptive for horses as it enables them to flexibly adjust to new environments. In the context of horse handling, social learning from humans has been rarely investigated but could help to facilitate management practices. We assessed the impact of human demonstration on the spatial problem-solving abilities of horses during a detour task. In this task, a bucket with a food reward was placed behind a double-detour barrier and 16 horses were allocated to two test groups of 8 horses each. One group received a human demonstration of how to solve the spatial task while the other group received no demonstration. We found that horses did not solve the detour task more often or faster with human demonstration. However, both test groups improved rapidly over trials. Our results suggest that horses prefer to use individual rather than social information when solving a spatial problem-solving task.
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Publication Date: 2018-06-13 PubMed ID: 29899296PubMed Central: PMC6025305DOI: 10.3390/ani8060096Google Scholar: Lookup
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  • Journal Article

Summary

This research summary has been generated with artificial intelligence and may contain errors and omissions. Refer to the original study to confirm details provided. Submit correction.

The study investigates how horses respond to human demonstrations in the context of a spatial problem-solving task, specifically a detour task. The study found that human demonstration did not significantly facilitate horses’ performances.

Objective of the Research

  • The main goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of human demonstration on horses’ spatial problem-solving abilities. This research was rooted in the idea that the social learning abilities of horses could be harnessed to improve handling and training.
  • The researchers wanted to focus on the area of social learning from humans, which had scarcely been touched upon in previous studies.

Research Design and Methodology

  • The experiment was set up in the form of a detour task, with a bucket containing a food reward placed behind a double-detour barrier.
  • The subject group consisted of 16 horses, divided into two test groups. One group saw a human demonstrate how to solve the spatial task, while the other group received no such demonstration.
  • The aim was to understand if watching a human complete the task would make the horses perform better (more quickly or accurately) in comparison to those that did not witness this demonstration.

Research Findings and Interpretation

  • Contrary to the expectation, the study found that there was no significant difference in the performance of the horses who had human demonstration and those who did not.
  • Irrespective of having seen the demonstration or not, both groups of horses showed rapid improvement over several trials.
  • From these results, the researchers concluded that horses, when presented with a spatial problem-solving task, prefer to depend on their individual learning and information rather than on social cues or information demonstrated by humans.

Overall, the implications of this study suggest that training and management practices for horses may need to place more emphasis on individual learning methods rather than attempting to rely on social learning techniques.

Cite This Article

APA
Burla JB, Siegwart J, Nawroth C. (2018). Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate the Performance of Horses (Equus caballus) in a Spatial Problem-Solving Task. Animals (Basel), 8(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/ani8060096

Publication

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
ISSN: 2076-2615
NlmUniqueID: 101635614
Country: Switzerland
Language: English
Volume: 8
Issue: 6

Researcher Affiliations

Burla, Joan-Bryce
  • Centre for Proper Housing of Ruminants and Pigs, Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office FSVO, Agroscope Tänikon, 8356 Ettenhausen, Switzerland. joan-bryce.burla@agroscope.admin.ch.
Siegwart, Janina
  • Kantonsschlue Kollegium Schwyz, Kollegiumstrasse 24, 6430 Schwyz, Switzerland. janina.siegwart@bluewin.ch.
Nawroth, Christian
  • Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology, Institute of Behavioural Physiology, Wilhelm-Stahl-Allee 2, 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany. nawroth.christian@gmail.com.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that they do not have any competing interest.

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