Put on your happy face at the barn

[StraightForward]

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-an ... at-horses/

[Kyra's Mom]

I believe .

I used to get to the barn harried, hurried and then if horsey put a hoof wrong...angry. It didn't work (duh). I have worked very hard on leaving all the stressful trappings of the day in the car and yes, put on my happy face. She is a much more willing partner if I do.

Today was trying. I wasn't happy with her for tearing down the fence between her and the neighbor (AGAIN). When I brought her in to doctor her legs and tack her up, she was pinning her ears at me. Oooh. Needless to say, for that display I didn't put on my happy face. She got a lecture and a smack on the shoulder. She knew she was naughty but that was the end of it. I wasn't sure I even wanted to get on Ms. Stinkface but we both did an attitude adjustment (to our happy faces) and we had a very nice ride.

Susan

[LeoApp]

OK so HOW did the horse behave accordingly when it recognized the person making a face in a photograph???? Ugh I hate articles that leave out huge swaths of information!
I am always happy at the barn.

[Chisamba]

OK so HOW did the horse behave accordingly when it recognized the person making a face in a photograph???? Ugh I hate articles that leave out huge swaths of information!
I am always happy at the barn.

Totally with you. I really accept that horses recognize facial expressions. I completely disagree that they recognize people from a photograph

[Kyra's Mom]

I don't know but my horse knows my car. She sees my car coming when I am about 1/4 of a mile away (her pen borders a hay field so it is open and she can see the road). I mean MY car. Many other white cars and trucks drive down that road and she just stands there. My car...she whinnies and meets me at the gate. Faces, cars?

Susan

[Chisamba]

A car has distinctive color sound shape and smell. Easily identified

[StraightForward]

OK so HOW did the horse behave accordingly when it recognized the person making a face in a photograph???? Ugh I hate articles that leave out huge swaths of information!
I am always happy at the barn.

Horses in the experimental group that had been shown the angry photo spent more time engaging in displacement behaviors (scratching, floor sniffing, and performing a species-specific behavior termed “lick and chew”) when viewing the live neutral person than did those that had been shown the happy photo (mean ± SE = 12.5 ± 3.5 s versus 3.6 ± 1.6 s, t1,15.5 = 2.30, p = 0.036, r = 0.42; see Figure 2D). Looking at additional stress-related behaviors, only one horse showed avoidance behaviors and two showed nostril dilation during the test (all in the angry condition); thus, no statistical analyses were performed on these measures. There were also no differences in the number of horses that approached the live model (Fisher’s exact test [FET] n = 23, p = 0.68).

The full text of the journal article is here: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fu ... 60-9822(18)30364-6

Sorry, I wasn't able to follow this link when posting from my phone earlier.