Horses Can Read Human Emotions, Study Shows

For the first time horses have been shown to be able to distinguish between angry and happy human facial expressions.
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Researchers at the University of Sussex, in the United Kingdom, have confirmed that horses can read human facial expressions. For the first time horses have been shown to be able to distinguish between angry and happy human facial expressions.

Sussex psychologists studied how 28 horses reacted to seeing photographs of positive and negative human facial expressions. When viewing angry faces, horses looked more with their left eye, a behavior associated with perceiving negative stimuli. Their heart rate also increased more quickly and they showed more stress-related behaviors when looking at negative human expressions.

The researchers said this response indicates that the horses had a functionally relevant understanding of the angry faces they were seeing. The effect of facial expressions on heart rate has not been seen before in interactions between animals and humans.

“What’s really interesting about this research is that it shows that horses have the ability to read emotions across the species barrier,” said Amy Smith, BSc (Hons.), MSc, a doctoral student in the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at Sussex, who co-led the research. “We have known for a long time that horses are a socially sophisticated species but this is the first time we have seen that they can distinguish between positive and negative human facial expressions

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
433 votes · 433 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!