Questionnaires for guessing horses emotions from its facial expressions

• Published in: Animal science journal Vol. 72; no. 8
• Main Authors: Aoyama, M. (Utsunomiya Univ. (Japan). Coll. of Agriculture), Yamazaki, M, Sugita, S, Kusunose, R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: 01.04.2001
• Subjects: BEHAVIOUR; HORSES; QUESTIONNAIRES; SURVEYS
• ISSN: 1344-3941; 1740-0929

It was thought that for horse trainers, riders and grooms, to care for horses, emotions is very important during riding or training. Therefore understanding horses emotions would b necessary. They may be able to guess horses emotions from its facial expressions and behaviors. We investigated w ether it is possible to guess horses emotions from their facial expressions, and which parts of horses faces they can observe the guessing. Questionnaires, which asked them to guess horses situations only from its faces pictures and asked which parts they observed for guessing, were distributed. As the results, the average point of 143 people who treat horses usually was 53.5(100 points for all correct answers), and it was significantly higher than the average of 111 persons (39.4 points) who are unfamiliar with horses. So, horse trainers, riders and grooms, at least in parts, could guess horses situations from its faces. The most observed part for guessing on horses faces was by the ears, and that higher points getters (above 55 points) observed ears more frequently than lower points getters. This results describe that horses ears can be a useful indicator for guessing their situations. However, in some cases, even in different situations, horses ears appear so similarly that it would be difficult to guess their situations only from ears. In such cases, observation of other parts of the face or the face of neighboring horses, simultaneously with ears might be useful for guessing correctly their situations, and their emotions caused by these situations.