Tag: horse

Horses help in the development of emotionally well-adjusted teenagers, study finds

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The study team found that the equine students had fewer emotional and behavioral problems, and their prosocial behavior was about four times better than that of the control group. Photo by Philippe Oursel

Interacting with horses is great for the development of emotionally well-adjusted adolescents, the findings of a new study show.

The differences between adolescents involved with horses and those without such contact were found to be quite profound in some areas.

For their study, Imre Zoltán Pelyva and his fellow researchers focused on a group of healthy students, aged 14–18, without special educational needs or problems.

Those with contact with horses attended 10 agricultural secondary schools in Hungary. They all took part in a four-year equine program. These students had no diagnosed physical or psychological difficulties.

Within the curriculum, they spent two days — 9 to 13 hours each week — with horses. They fed and groomed the horses, cleaned the stable, and worked with the horses on the lunge, from the saddle, and also undertook carriage driving.

Members of the control group comprised students from the same schools who studied non-horse related, agricultural, or food industry vocations, such as gardening, animal husbandry, meat processing or baking.

They did not take part in any activities involving horses.

All the students — there were 525 in all — underwent evaluations at the beginning and at the end of their studies. Central to this was a recognised questionnaire to assess their emotional and behavioral problems and psychic disturbances.

The results between the equine students and the control group were then compared.

The study team, writing in the journal Environmental Research and Public Health, found that the equine students had fewer emotional and behavioral problems, and their prosocial behavior was about four times better than that of the control group.

Prosocial behavior is social behavior that benefits other people or society as a whole, such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering.

The study team, from the University of Pécs and the University of Szeged in Hungary, characterized the differences as remarkable.

“Our results indicate that students of equine-related vocations are more helpful and empathetic, and have fewer behavior problems than those studying other vocations.

Equine students were assessed as having fewer behavior problems upon admission to their school (all of them had regular contact with horses before). However, impressively, the rate of decline in these problems was found to be more significant than in the other group.

The study team, discussing their findings, said the findings that favorable characteristics were already present at the admission of equine students to the institutions might suggest that adolescents with stronger social skills are attracted to horses.

“On the other hand, the fact that the decline of behavior problems is more remarkable in the equine group than in the control group suggests that equine-assisted activities might play a role in strengthening these skills.”

Their analysis showed that equine-related activities were a significant factor leading to these favorable behavior traits.

“It is important to mention that these beneficial effects of equine-assisted activities are mostly based on the students’ understanding of and susceptibility to equine communication.

“The mere presence of a horse is less likely to be effective if the equine professional present does not give meaning to the horse’s behavior.

“Students have to learn to treat the horses as subjects and not as objects in order to get involved and become receptive to positive influence within the interaction.

“At the same time, this knowledge (that is, understanding equine communication and behavior) is also essential just to be able to work safely and effectively with these animals.

“This means that no therapeutic goals are needed to teach students to pay attention to and respect horses — it is the basis of all equine interactions in professional environments.”

That, they said, is why the standard school environments, without any therapeutic element, could produce such results.

“We strongly believe that the relationship humans build with horses shows them a way to build trust, acceptance, and understanding toward humans, as well.

“Our results suggest that young people who learn to listen to and take care of the horse can transfer this knowledge to intraspecies communication and behavior, as well.

“Equine students’ prosocial behavior is four times better than that of non-equine students. This result is remarkable and supports the idea that being around horses improves students’ social competences.”

Adolescence, they said, is a difficult period in life. They have to cope with many difficulties during these years.

“They need help to understand and find their place in the world, or to just generally get around successfully. The lucky ones get enough support from their family and friends, others — a very limited number — get professional help with more serious problems.

“Our study showed that with a little care and attention, normal school programs can improve competencies that are useful in life.

“If horses can be used to help adolescents and there are schools with horses and adolescents, why not exploit the possibility? With a little investment, gains might be great.”

The results indicate that equine-assisted activities have a protective effect on the behavior of adolescents, they said.

“These results also show that equine vocational schools or programs have — to the best of our knowledge — so far unidentified potential to help adolescents with behavior problems, or possibly to prevent their development.

The full study team comprised Pelyva, Etelka Szovák and Ákos Levente Tóth, all with the University of Pécs; and Réka Kresák, with the University of Szeged.

Pelyva, I.Z.; Kresák, R.; Szovák, E.; Tóth, Á.L. How Equine-Assisted Activities Affect the Prosocial Behavior of Adolescents. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 2967.

Horses help in the development of emotionally well-adjusted teenagers, study finds

Ancient Purebred Horse With Bronze-Plated Saddle Is Discovered in Pompeii

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The horse, a purebred, was wearing a bronze-plated military saddle and ready to go when Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the ancient city of Pompeii in A.D. 79. The horse, too, was covered in pumice and ash.

Almost 2,000 years later, archaeologists unearthed the immobilized horse, along with the remains of two others, in the remnants of a stable attached to a sumptuous suburban villa in Civita Giuliana, outside the walls of what remains of Pompeii, the Archaeological Park of Pompeii said in a statement on Monday.

The horses are among a growing list of archaeological treasures dug up at the Pompeii site, discovered in the late 16th century. This year, Pompeian excavations have found a shrine with wall paintings that hint at Roman life in the first century; the skeleton of a man who had fled the volcanic eruption only to be buried by a rock; and a well-preserved fresco in a house on the Via del Vesuvio depicting the mythological rape of Leda, the queen of Sparta, by Zeus in the form of a swan.

The horses probably perished soon after the volcanic explosion, with their frozen postures suggesting they had been unable to wrest free. The saddled horse and its elaborate harness were discovered over the summer, the archaeological park statement said.

Instead of stirrups, the saddle had four bronze-plated wooden horns, one in each corner, to help keep the rider stable. Researchers compared the saddle to those used by Romans around the time Mount Vesuvius erupted.

In May, researchers completed a plaster cast of the first horse found at the site. The dimensions suggested that the horses, including the latest discovered, had been of a valuable breed, officials said in a statement, a type used to display social status.

The discovery of the horses confirmed that the stable had been part of a prestigious estate, Massimo Osanna, the Pompeii site’s general director, said in the statement. The villa was enhanced with “richly frescoed and furnished rooms, and sumptuous sloping terraces facing onto the Gulf of Naples and Capri, as well as an efficient servant’s quarter, with a farmyard, oil and wine warehouses and densely cultivated lands,” according to the statement.

Archaeologists discovered 15 rooms from the villa in the early 20th century, and smaller finds since then. In 1955, dividing walls were found in excavations at Civita Giuliana. In recent decades, scavengers visited the site too, digging illegal tunnels below the estate.

To stop the illegal tunneling, official excavations began again this year. In 2019, with the aid of 2 million euros ($2.27 million), archaeologists will continue the work with an eye toward opening the site to the public, Mr. Osanna said.

Horses remember if you smiled or frowned when they last saw you

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By Sam Wong

Why the long face? Horses can remember the facial expressions they see on human faces and respond differently if you smiled or frowned when they last saw you.

Leanne Proops, now at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and her colleagues at the University of Sussex showed in 2016 that horses respond differently to photographs of happy or angry human faces. Now they have studied whether horses can form lasting memories of people that depend on their facial expressions.

First, they showed horses a photo of one of two human models, displaying either a happy or angry face. Several hours later, the model visited the horse in person, this time with a neutral expression. As a control, some horses saw a different model in the second part to the one they saw in the photograph.

Crucially, the models didn’t know which photo the horse had seen earlier. In the early 20th century, a horse called Clever Hans amazed audiences by appearing to answer simple mathematical problems by tapping his hoof. It turned out he was responding to involuntary cues from his trainer. Proops’ study aimed to eliminate such cues.

Stop pulling faces!
Stop pulling faces!
Pal Teravagimov Photography / Getty
By Sam Wong

Why the long face? Horses can remember the facial expressions they see on human faces and respond differently if you smiled or frowned when they last saw you.

Leanne Proops, now at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and her colleagues at the University of Sussex showed in 2016 that horses respond differently to photographs of happy or angry human faces. Now they have studied whether horses can form lasting memories of people that depend on their facial expressions.

First, they showed horses a photo of one of two human models, displaying either a happy or angry face. Several hours later, the model visited the horse in person, this time with a neutral expression. As a control, some horses saw a different model in the second part to the one they saw in the photograph.

Crucially, the models didn’t know which photo the horse had seen earlier. In the early 20th century, a horse called Clever Hans amazed audiences by appearing to answer simple mathematical problems by tapping his hoof. It turned out he was responding to involuntary cues from his trainer. Proops’ study aimed to eliminate such cues.

The team found that the horses remembered the models’ previous facial expressions.

Horses prefer to look at negative and threatening sights with their left eye, and positive social stimuli with their right eye. In the study, when they saw a model they had seen frowning earlier, they spent more time looking with their left eye. They also exhibited more stress-related behaviours, like scratching and floor sniffing. In contrast, when they saw a model they had seen smiling earlier, they spent more time looking with their right eye.

Many other animals have shown an ability to remember human faces, including sheep and fish. Wild crows will hold a grudge for years against people who have treated them badly, and even teach other crows to mob their enemies.

However, the horses seem to form an opinion about people based only on their expression in a photograph. “That’s something we haven’t really seen in animals before,” says Proops.

“The horse family has the most expressive faces after the primates, so logically they pay attention to faces and expressions,” says Frans de Waal at Emory University in Atlanta. “Horses surrounded by people have ample opportunity to learn what our expressions mean.”

Journal reference: Current Biology, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.03.035

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167423-horses-remember-if-you-smiled-or-frowned-when-they-last-saw-you/

New research shows that horses can recognize human emotion

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Psychologists studied how 28 horses reacted to seeing photographs of positive versus negative human facial expressions. When viewing angry faces, horses looked more with their left eye, a behaviour associated with perceiving negative stimuli. Their heart rate also increased more quickly and they showed more stress-related behaviours. The study, published February 10 in Biology Letters, concludes that 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.

Amy Smith, a doctoral student in the Mammal Vocal Communication and Cognition Research Group at the University of Sussex who co-led the research, said: “What’s really interesting about this research is that it shows that horses have the ability to read emotions across the species barrier. 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.”

“The reaction to the angry facial expressions was particularly clear — there was a quicker increase in their heart rate, and the horses moved their heads to look at the angry faces with their left eye.”

Research shows that many species view negative events with their left eye due to the right brain hemisphere’s specialisation for processing threatening stimuli (information from the left eye is processed in the right hemisphere).

Amy continued: “It’s interesting to note that the horses had a strong reaction to the negative expressions but less so to the positive. This may be because it is particularly important for animals to recognise threats in their environment. In this context, recognising angry faces may act as a warning system, allowing horses to anticipate negative human behaviour such as rough handling.”

A tendency for viewing negative human facial expressions with the left eye specifically has also been documented in dogs.

Professor Karen McComb, a co-lead author of the research, said: “There are several possible explanations for our findings. Horses may have adapted an ancestral ability for reading emotional cues in other horses to respond appropriately to human facial expressions during their co-evolution. Alternatively, individual horses may have learned to interpret human expressions during their own lifetime. What’s interesting is that accurate assessment of a negative emotion is possible across the species barrier despite the dramatic difference in facial morphology between horses and humans.”

“Emotional awareness is likely to be very important in highly social species like horses — and our ongoing research is examining the relationship between a range of emotional skills and social behaviour.”

The horses were recruited from five riding or livery stables in Sussex and Surrey, UK, between April 2014 and February 2015. They were shown happy and angry photographs of two unfamiliar male faces. The experimental tests examined the horses’ spontaneous reactions to the photos, with no prior training, and the experimenters were not able to see which photographs they were displaying so they could not inadvertently influence the horses.

Journal Reference: Amy Victoria Smith, Leanne Proops, Kate Grounds, Jennifer Wathan and Karen McComb. Functionally relevant responses to human facial expressions of emotion in the domestic horse (Equus caballus). Biology Letters, 2016 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2015.0907

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160209221158.htm