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Social learning across species - horses (Equus caballus) learn from humans by observation
Schuetz, Aurelia, Farmer, Kate and Krueger, Konstanze
(2016)
Social learning across species - horses (Equus caballus) learn from humans by observation.
Animal Cognition 20 (3), pp. 567-573.
Date of publication of this fulltext: 20 Apr 2017 07:27
Article
DOI to cite this document: 10.5283/epub.35564
Abstract
This study examines whether horses can learn by observing humans, given that they identify individual humans and orientate on the focus of human attention. We tested 24 horses aged between 3 and 12. Twelve horses were tested on whether they would learn to open a feeding apparatus by observing a familiar person. The other 12 were controls and received exactly the same experimental procedure, but ...
This study examines whether horses can learn by observing humans, given that they identify individual humans and orientate on the focus of human attention. We tested 24 horses aged between 3 and 12. Twelve horses were tested on whether they would learn to open a feeding apparatus by observing a familiar person. The other 12 were controls and received exactly the same experimental procedure, but without a demonstration of how to operate the apparatus. More horses from the group with demonstration (8/12) reached the learning criterion of opening the feeder twenty times consecutively than horses from the control group (2/12), and younger horses seemed to reach the criterion more quickly. Horses not reaching the learning criteria approached the human experimenters more often than those that did. The results demonstrate that horses learn socially across species, in this case from humans.
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| Item type | Article | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title | Animal Cognition | ||||||
| Publisher: | SPRINGER HEIDELBERG | ||||||
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| Place of Publication: | HEIDELBERG | ||||||
| Volume: | 20 | ||||||
| Number of Issue or Book Chapter: | 3 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 567-573 | ||||||
| Date | November 2016 | ||||||
| Institutions | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie | ||||||
| Identification Number |
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| Keywords | DOG CANIS-FAMILIARIS; HUMAN DEMONSTRATOR; RANK; ENHANCEMENT; PERFORMANCE; ATTENTION; BEHAVIOR; TASK; Social enhancement; Equus caballus; Human demonstrator; Interspecies-specific learning; Social learning | ||||||
| Dewey Decimal Classification | 500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences | ||||||
| Status | Published | ||||||
| Refereed | Yes, this version has been refereed | ||||||
| Created at the University of Regensburg | Yes | ||||||
| URN of the UB Regensburg | urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-epub-355644 | ||||||
| Item ID | 35564 |
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