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jrlewis's picture

Might Horses Have a Theory of Mind?

Earlier this afternoon, I was standing with my horse Bailey and chatting with my trainer.  She reached out and tapped my horse on the neck with her fingers.  My mare responded by bending her head and snapping her teeth, where the woman’s finger’s had been.  This surprised both of us humans, it is an uncommon reaction for a horse to have.  My trainer, then tried squeezing her on the other side of the side of the neck and we observed the same snapping teeth.  A normal horse would have responded to a touch on the neck by either lunging forward and biting the offending human, or back up/away from the human (the correct response).  The average horse would have been capable of attributing the sensation in their neck to human fingers and the human standing in front of them.   They could connect a tactile input to a visual input and derive a story about the intentions of the person standing in front of them.  That the person was communicating to them that they should back up.  Bailey, didn’t connect the tactile sensation to her visual input of a person and their hands.  Instead she interpreted the touch as an attack from another creature than the human, hence the biting at the hands.  It appears that Bailey may not have as fully developed a theory of mind as other horses.  

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