Scientists believe that horses can plan ahead and think strategically
Kyiv • UNN
Scientists from Nottingham Trent University have discovered that horses can think ahead and plan their actions. In a game of reward, horses quickly adapted their strategy to get the most treats with the least amount of effort.
According to a study by Nottingham Trent University, which analyzed the reactions of animals to a reward game, horses have the ability to think and plan ahead and are much smarter than previously thought. UNN writes about this with reference to The Guardian.
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The horses have skillfully adapted their approach to the game to get the most treats with the least amount of effort.
Previous studies have suggested that horses simply react to stimuli in the moment, they do not look ahead, think ahead or plan their actions - whereas our research shows that they are aware of the consequences and outcomes of their actions
The three-stage game involved 20 horses, who initially received treats just for touching a card with their noses. Then, in the second stage, the researchers started to turn on the "stop signal". The horses received treats only if they touched the card when the stop signal was off.
Initially, they ignored the light and continued to touch the card whether the light was on or not. But when, in the third phase, the researchers introduced a 10-second timeout during which the horses could not play the game at all, even though the stop light was on, the team found a sudden and very significant decrease in the number of errors for all participants. The horses started to touch the card correctly at just the right moment to get a treat.
This time out was enough to get the performance we needed from them immediately. It was enough for the horses to say: "Okay, let's just play by the rules
The instantaneous change of strategies in this way indicates that horses have a higher level of cognitive thinking than previously thought. This indicates that the horses did not just fail to understand the principles of the game, but understood the rules all along, but, being smart, did not see the need to pay much attention to them in the second stage.
This behavior requires the horse to think about the future, the researchers say, and is very goal-oriented, where horses must focus on what they want to achieve and the steps they need to take to get there.
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