Abstract
Social animals can gain important benefits by inferring the goals behind the behavior of others. However, this ability has only been investigated in a handful of species outside of primates. In this study, we tested for the first time whether domestic horses can interpret human actions as goal directed. We used the classical “unwilling versus unable” paradigm: an experimenter performed three similar actions that have the same outcome, but the goal of the experimenter differed. In the unwilling condition, the experimenter had no intention to give a piece of food to a horse and moved it out of reach when the horse tried to eat it. In the two unable conditions, the experimenter had the intention to give the food to the horse but was unable to do so, either because there was a physical barrier between them or because of the experimenter’s clumsiness. The horses (n = 21) reacted differently in the three conditions: they showed more interest in the unable conditions, especially in the unable clumsy condition, than in the unwilling condition. These results are similar to results found in primates with the same paradigm and suggest that horses might have taken the experimenter’s goal, or even intentions, into account to adapt their behavior. Hence, our study offers more insights into horse interspecific social cognition towards humans.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bernauer K, Kollross H, Schuetz A et al (2019) How do horses (Equus caballus) learn from observing human action? Anim Cogn 23:1–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-019-01310-0
Buttelmann D, Carpenter M, Call J, Tomasello M (2007) Enculturated chimpanzees imitate rationally. Dev Sci 10:31–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00630.x
Buttelmann D, Schütte S, Carpenter M et al (2012) Great apes infer others’ goals based on context. Anim Cogn 15:1037–1053. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-012-0528-4
Call J, Tomasello M (2008) Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind? 30 years later. Trends Cogn Sci 12:187–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.02.010
Call J, Hare B, Carpenter M, Tomasello M (2004) ’Unwilling’ versus ’unable’: chimpanzees’ understanding of human intentional action. Dev Sci 7:488–498. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00368.x
Canteloup C, Meunier H (2017) ‘Unwilling’ versus ‘unable’: Tonkean macaques’ understanding of human goal-directed actions. PeerJ 5:e3227. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3227
Friard O, Gamba M (2016) BORIS: a free, versatile open-source event-logging software for video/audio coding and live observations. Methods Ecol Evol 7:1325–1330. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12584
Gabor V, Gerken M (2012) Cognitive testing in horses using a computer based apparatus. Appl Anim Behav Sci 139:242–250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2012.04.010
Gabor V, Gerken M (2014) Shetland ponies (Equus caballus) show quantity discrimination in a matching-to-sample design. Anim Cogn 17:1233–1243. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0753-0
Hauser M, Wood J (2010) Evolving the capacity to understand actions, intentions, and goals. Annu Rev Psychol 61:303–324. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100434
Hothorn T, Bretz F, Westfall P et al (2019) Multcomp: simultaneous inference in general parametric models. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/multcomp/index.html. Accessed 23 May 2020
Krueger K, Flauger B, Farmer K, Maros K (2011) Horses (Equus caballus) use human local enhancement cues and adjust to human attention. Anim Cogn 14:187–201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-010-0352-7
Kuznetsova A, Brockhoff PB, Christensen RHB (2015) lmerTest: tests for random and fixed effects for linear mixed effect models. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lmerTest/index.html. Accessed 23 May 2020
Lansade L, Colson V, Parias C et al (2020) Female horses spontaneously identify a photograph of their keeper, last seen six months previously. Sci Rep 10:6302. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62940-w
Malavasi R, Huber L (2016) Evidence of heterospecific referential communication from domestic horses (Equus caballus) to humans. Anim Cogn 19:899–909. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-0987-0
Murphy J, Hall C, Arkins S (2009) What horses and humans see: a comparative review. Int J Zool. https://doi.org/10.1155/2009/721798
Péron F, Rat-fischer L, Nagle L, Bovet D (2010) ‘Unwilling’ versus ‘unable’: do grey parrots understand human intentional actions? Interact Stud 11:428–441. https://doi.org/10.1075/is.11.3.06per
Phillips W, Barnes JL, Mahajan N et al (2009) “Unwilling” versus “unable”: capuchin monkeys’ (Cebus apella) understanding of human intentional action. Dev Sci 12:938–945. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00840.x
Proops L, McComb K (2010) Attributing attention: the use of human-given cues by domestic horses (Equus caballus). Anim Cogn 13:197–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-009-0257-5
Range F, Viranyi Z, Huber L (2007) Selective imitation in domestic dogs. Curr Biol 17:868–872. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2007.04.026
R Core Team (2013) R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/. Accessed 23 May 2020
Ringhofer M, Yamamoto S (2016) Domestic horses send signals to humans when they face with an unsolvable task. Anim Cogn 20:397–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017-1074-x
Ringhofer M, Inoue S, Mendonça RS et al (2017) Comparison of the social systems of primates and feral horses: data from a newly established horse research site on Serra D’Arga, northern Portugal. Primates 58:479–484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-017-0614-y
Searle JR (1983) Intentionality: an essay in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Taylor AH, Hunt GR, Medina FS, Gray RD (2009) Do new caledonian crows solve physical problems through causal reasoning? Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 276:247–254. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1107
Teschke I, Tebbich S (2011) Physical cognition and tool-use: performance of Darwin’s finches in the two-trap tube task. Anim Cogn 14:555–563. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-011-0390-9
Tomonaga M, Kumazaki K, Camus F et al (2015) A horse’s eye view: size and shape discrimination compared with other mammals. Biol Lett 11:20150701. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0701
Trösch M, Cuzol F, Parias C et al (2019a) Horses categorize human emotions cross-modally based on facial expression and non-verbal vocalizations. Animals 9:862–872. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani9110862
Trösch M, Ringhofer M, Yamamoto S et al (2019b) Horses prefer to solicit a person who previously observed a food-hiding process to access this food: a possible indication of attentional state attribution. Behav Process 166:103906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103906
Trösch M, Pellon S, Cuzol F et al (2020) Horses feel emotions when they watch positive and negative horse–human interactions in a video and transpose what they saw to real life. Anim Cogn. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01369-0
Visalberghi E, Limongelli L (1994) Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). J Comp Psychol 108:15–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.108.1.15
Wood JN, Glynn DD, Phillips BC, Hauser MD (2007) The perception of rational, goal-directed action in non-human primates. Science 317:1402–1405
Wood JN, Glynn DD, Hauser MD (2008) Rhesus monkeys’ understanding of actions and goals. Soc Neurosci 3:60–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470910701563442
Woodward AL (2009) Infants’ grasp of others’ intentions. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 18:53–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01605.x
Acknowledgements
We thank Carlos Da Silva and Dominique Rodrigues for allowing us to use the horses and facilities in their stable and all the owners of the horses. We also thank Solenn Demulder, Caroline Paillard and Florent Cuzol for their help during video analysis. Our research was financially supported by the IFCE (Institut Français du Cheval et de l’Equitation; grant: Cognition-équitation).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Trösch, M., Bertin, E., Calandreau, L. et al. Unwilling or willing but unable: can horses interpret human actions as goal directed?. Anim Cogn 23, 1035–1040 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01396-x
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01396-x