Human demonstration does not facilitate the performance of horses in a spatial problem-solving task
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Key finding:
Horses were confronted with a spatial problem-solving task in which they had to detour an obstacle. Individuals that observed a human demonstrating how to solve the task did not solve the task more often or faster compared with a control group without demonstration. However, horses of both the treatment and control group detoured the obstacle faster over trials. Together with previous research, our results illustrate that horses do not seem to rely on social information when solving a spatial problem-solving task.
Links to Open Access Publications or DOI:
Citation:
Burla, J.-B., Siegwart, J., Nawroth, C. (2018) Human demonstration does not facilitate the performance of horses (Equus caballus) in a spatial problem-solving task. Animals 8(6): 96.
