The Mind of the Horse : An Introduction to Equine Cognition

Horses were first domesticated about 6,000 years ago on the vast Eurasian steppe extending from Mongolia to the Carpathian Mountains. Yet only in the last two decades have scientists begun to explore the specific mental capacities of these animals. Responding to a surge of interest in fields from ethology to comparative psychology and evolutionary biology, Michel-Antoine Leblanc presents an encyclopedic synthesis of scientific knowledge about equine behavior and cognition. The Mind of the Horse provides experts and enthusiasts alike with an up-to-date understanding of how horses perceive, think about, and adapt to their physical and social worlds. Much of what we know--or think we know--about "the intelligence of the horse" derives from fragmentary reports and anecdotal evidence. Putting this accumulated wisdom to the test, Leblanc introduces readers to rigorous experimental investigations into how horses make sense of their world under varying conditions. He describes the anatomical and neurophysiological characteristics of the horse's brain, and offers an evolutionary perspective by comparing these features with those of other species. A horseman himself, Leblanc also considers the opinions of renowned riding masters, as well as controversies surrounding the extraordinary powers of the horse's mind that have stirred in equestrian and scientific circles. Although scientists understand more today about how horses think than at any time in our species' long acquaintance with these animals, much remains in the dark. The Mind of the Horse brings together the current state of equine research and will likely stimulate surprising new discoveries. Contents 8 Foreword To The French Edition 10 Foreword To The English Edition 14 Preface 18 1. What We Know About The Nature Of The Horse 24 Then and Now 24 Discovering the Real Life of Free-Ranging Horses 28 Equine Ethology Studies to Pursue 34 The Emergence of a New Field of Research: The Cognitive Ethology of the Horse 37 2. Equine Intelligence 45 A Rash of Clever Horses 51 3. Animal Intelligence, Cognition, And Representation 63 Intelligence and Cognition 63 Animal Behavior, Cognition, and Representation 69 4. The Equine Brain 94 Nervous Tissue and the General Organization of the Mammalian Nervous System 94 Brain and Mind in the Light of Evolution 122 5. The Nature Of Equine Perception 134 Perception: A Dynamic Process That Constructs the World 134 A Few Issues Regarding the Study of Equine Perception 145 6. The Anatomical And Physiological Basis Of Equine Visual Perception 148 Size, Arrangement of the Eyes, and Visual Field 149 Anatomical Structure of the Eye 152 A Short Tour of the Anatomy of the Retina 155 Structure of the Retina and Visual Quality 160 Optical Pathways and Cortical Distribution 168 Chromatic Theory and Color Perception 171 7. The Behavioral Exploration Of Equine Visual Perception: Perception Of Shapes And Movement 183 Experimental Procedures 183 Visual Aculty 185 The Visual Field 190 Night Vision 195 The Visual Apparatus: An Integrated System... 199 ...In the Context of Cerebral Hemispheric Specialization 202 Perceiving the Third Dimension 217 Image Recognition 226 Object Recognition 230 Perceiving Movement 234 The Equine Visual Environment: Seen as a Whole or the Sum of Its Parts? 236 8. The Behavioral Exploration Of Equine Visual Perception: The Quest For Color Peception 240 Brightness: A Vexing Dimension 241 A Pioneering Study (Grzimek 1952) 252 An Inconclusive Replication (Pick et al. 1994) 256 An Apparent Confirmation of Grzimek's Results (Smith and Goldman 1999) 257 New Uncertanties Centering on Brightness (Macuda and Timney 1999) 260 The Evidence for a Neutral Point (Gelsbauer et al. 2004) 264 Color Preferences (Hall et al. 2005) 267 Do Horses Perceive the Entire Color Spectrum? (Hall et al. 2006) 268 The Neutral Point: Break or Continuity? (Roth, Balkenius, and Kelber 2007) 275 Equine Dichromacy: A Qualification (Hanggi, Ingersoll, and Waggoner 2007) 281 A New Experiment in Chromatic Discrimination (Blackmore et al. 2008) 286 How Well Do Horses Discriminate Color in Half-Light? (Roth, Balkenius, and Kelber 2008) 293 Colors That Can be Failry Well Discriminated across the Light Spectrum (Timney and Macuda 2009) 296 A Provisional Summing Up 301 9. Hearing In Horses 303 Nature, Representation, and Characterization of Acoustic Information 303 The Equine Auditory System: Anatomy and Physiology 311 Behavioral Exploration of Equine Auditory Perception 320 10. Equine Chemical Perception: Odors, Pheromones, Tastes, And Flavors 361 Olfactory Perception in the Horse 362 From Taste to Flavor 385 11. Tactile Perception In The Horse 400 Structure and Function of Horse Skin 400 Receptors: Equine Sensory Pathways and Skin Sensitivity 405 Mutual Grooming and Neurophysiological Response 409 Tactile Stimulation and Interspecific Social Relationships 416 Conclusion 419 References 424 Acknowledgments 456 Index 458 Horses were first domesticated about 6,000 years ago on the vast Eurasian steppe, yet only in the last two decades have scientists begun to explore the mental capacities of these animals. In __The Mind of the Horse,__ Michel-Antoine Leblanc presents an encyclopedic synthesis of scientific knowledge about equine behavior and cognition, providing experts and enthusiasts alike with an up-to-date understanding of how horses perceive, think about, and adapt to their physical and social worlds. Much of what we think we know about "the intelligence of the horse" derives from fragmentary reports and anecdotal evidence. Putting this accumulated wisdom to the test, Leblanc introduces readers to rigorous experimental investigations into how horses make sense of their world under varying conditions. He describes the anatomical and neurophysiological characteristics of the horse's brain, and compares these features with those of other species, to gain an evolutionary perspective. A horseman himself, Leblanc also considers the opinions of renowned riding masters, as well as controversies surrounding the horse's extraordinary mental powers that have stirred in equestrian and scientific circles. __The Mind of the Horse__ brings together in one volume the current state of equine research and will likely stimulate surprising new discoveries. Horses were first domesticated about 6000 years ago on the vast Eurasian steppe, yet only in the last two decades have scientists begun to explore the mental capacities of these animals. In this book, Michel-Antoine Leblanc presents an encyclopedic synthesis of scientific knowledge about equine behaviour and cognition, providing experts and enthusiasts alike with an up-to-date understanding of how horses perceive, think about, and adapt to their physical and social worlds