A Swiss study has found that domestic horses are able to recognize a negative emotional tone in recorded vocalizations from other domestic horses, people, and Przewalski's horses.
The ability to perceive emotion and discriminate between different emotions in vocalizations regulates interactions between species. This ability can lead to “emotional contagion,” in which the vocalizing animal and the one hearing the vocalizations match in emotional state.
Dr. Anne-Laure Maigrot and her research team report that this can also lead to more complex forms of empathy. Empathy is enhanced when the two animals are familiar with each other, regardless of their species.
The scientists played recordings of human and equine vocalizations in which the emotional tone was known to horses that were familiar with humans. They found that horses and Przewalski's horses reacted more strongly to the negative vocalizations of humans, other horses and the closely related species.
The team concludes that domestic horses and Przewalski's horses can discriminate between positive and negative vocalizations of their own kind, in a closely related species, and in human speech. This suggests that the acoustic structure of whinnies of both species is similar enough to trigger a response.
Read the study here.
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