You can lead a horse to water and, it turns out, convince it to drink if the reward is big enough, researchers have found.
A new study has shown that horses are more intelligent than previously thought, as they were observed to quickly adapt to a treat reward system with changing rules.
Researchers from Nottingham Trent University (NTU) said they were surprised at how quickly the horses picked up the game, dispelling previous theories that horse brains only respond to immediate stimuli and are not complex enough to strategize.
The new findings could lead to more humane training regimes for horses and improve their living conditions, the researchers said.
- Historic moment: The return of wild horses to the Kazakh plain after at least two centuries
- Frenzied horses raced through central London, injuring several people
- Ojibwe: The Return of Canada's Only Indigenous Horse Breed
The study included 20 horses, where the first ones were rewarded with a treat for touching a piece of card with their nose.
In the second phase, a stop light was introduced, and the rule was changed so that the prize was only given if they touched the card while the light was off.
This did not change the behavior of the horses, as they were observed to touch the card regardless of the light status - until the rules were changed a third time.
In the final phase, the researchers introduced a penalty of ten seconds of pause for touching the card while the stop light was on.
The team noticed that the horses quickly adapted their behavior from the moment the punishment was introduced, and they all quickly learned to play by the rules to avoid the break, the researchers said.
"We expected a shift in the horse when we introduced the timeout, but we were surprised by how significant and immediate the improvement was," said lead researcher Luiz Evans.
Scientists believe that the fact that the horses adapted so quickly indicates that they understood the stop light rule all along, but had no reason to follow it when there were no consequences for the mistake.
The study, published in the Applied Animal Behavior Science journal, shows that horses are more cognitively advanced than they are given credit for, said Dr. Keri Idžiči, a senior research fellow in domestic horses at NTU.
"This teaches us that we should not make assumptions about the intelligence or sentience of animals based on whether they are 'built' just like us," she said.
BBC is in Serbian from now on and on YouTube, follow us HERE.
Follow us on Facebook,Twitter, Instagram, YouTubei Viber. If you have a topic proposal for us, contact us at bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
