Don’t nag your horse – it may remember, then hold a grudge

HORSES can be tricky, and even the most tolerant rider will occasionally yield to the temptation to give their mount a ticking off and a stern look.

But, according to ground-breaking new research, they really shouldn’t: the horse may bear a grudge.

Scientists at Sussex and Portsmouth Universities have established that horses can not only read emotions, but can then remember the emotional expression of humans.

Published in the journal Current Biolog y, the discovery is the first example of its kind among mammals and sheds light on the intelligence of the species.

The research team conducted controlled experiments whereby domestic horses were presented with a photo of an angry or happy human face.

Several hours later, the animals saw the person depicted in the photograph, then in an emotionally neutral state.

Even the short-term exposure to the picture was found enough to generate clear differences in the subsequent reaction of the horse when it saw the human in the flesh.

The scientists noted that, despite the human being in an emotionally neutral state during the live meeting, the horses’ direction of gaze differed depending on whether the person had been depicted as happy or angry. They knew from previous research that animals tend to view negative events with their left eye due to the right hemisphere of the brain being largely responsible for processing threatening stimuli.

Crucially for the integrity of the experiment, the humans were not told which photos the horses had seen previously, to avoid any risk of confounding the results by behaving differently

‘Horses can not only read facial expressions but can also remember a person’s previous emotional state’

themselves. Prof Karen Mccomb, from Sussex, said: “What we’ve found is that horses can not only read human facial expressions but they can also remember a person’s previous emotional state when they meet them later that day – and, crucially, that they adapt their behaviour accordingly. Essentially, horses have a memory for emotion.”

Dr Leanne Proops, of Portsmouth, said: “We know that horses are socially intelligent animals, but this is the first time any mammal has been shown to have this particular ability.

“What’s very striking is that this happened after just briefly viewing a photo of the person.”