The mind of the horse an introduction to equine cognition

471 Pages·2013·8.061 MB·English

by  Leblanc, Michel-Antoine

The Mind of the Horse

The Mind of the Horse
An Introduction to Equine Cognition
Michel-Antoine Leblanc
Translated by Giselle Weiss
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2013
Copyright © 2013 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First published as L’esprit du cheval: Introduction à l’éthologie cognitive du cheval,
© 2010 by Éditions Belin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leblanc, Michel-Antoine, 1941-
[Esprit du cheval. English]
The mind of the horse : an introduction to equine cognition / Michel-Antoine Leblanc ;
translated by Giselle Weiss.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-72496-9 (alk. paper)
1. Horses--Behavior. 2. Horses--Psychology. 3. Animal intelligence. I. Title.
SF281.L4313 2013
636.1--dc23
2013007726
For Catherine

CONTENTS
Foreword to the French Edition, ix
Foreword to the English Edition, xiii
Preface, xvii
1. What We Know about the Nature of the Horse, 1
Then and Now, 1 | Discovering the Real Life of Free-Ranging Horses, 5 |
Equine Ethology Studies to Pursue, 11 | The Emergence of a New Field of
Research: The Cognitive Ethology of the Horse, 14
2. Equine Intelligence, 22
Are Horses Smart? One Question, Several Answers, 22 | A Rash of Clever
Horses, 28
3. Animal Intelligence, Cognition, and Representation, 40
Intelligence and Cognition, 40 | Animal Behavior, Cognition, and
Representation, 46
4. The Equine Brain, 71
Nervous Tissue and the General Organization of the Mammalian Nervous
System, 70 | Brain and Mind in the Light of Evolution, 99
5. The Nature of Equine Perception, 111
Perception: A Dynamic Process That Constructs the World, 111 | A Few Issues
Regarding the Study of Equine Perception, 122
6. The Anatomical and Physiological Basis of Equine Visual Perception, 125
Size, Arrangement of the Eyes, and Visual Field, 126 | Anatomical Structure
of the Eye, 129 | A Short Tour of the Anatomy of the Retina, 132 | Structure
of the Retina and Visual Quality, 137 | Optical Pathways and Cortical
Distribution, 145 | Chromatic Theory and Color Perception, 148
7. The Behavioral Exploration of Equine Visual Perception: Perception of
Shapes and Movement, 160
Experimental Procedures, 160 | Visual Acuity, 162 | The Visual Field, 167 |
Night Vision, 172 | The Visual Apparatus: An Integrated System . . . , 176 |
. . . In the Context of Cerebral Hemispheric Specialization, 179 | Perceiving
the Third Dimension, 194 | Image Recognition, 203 | Object Recognition,
207 | Perceiving Movement, 211 | The Equine Visual Environment: Seen as a
Whole or the Sum of Its Parts?, 213
8. The Behavioral Exploration of Equine Visual Perception: The Quest for
Color Perception, 217
Brightness: A Vexing Dimension, 218 | A Pioneering Study (Grzimek 1952),
221 | An Inconclusive Replication (Pick et al. 1994), 225 | An Apparent
Confirmation of Grzimek’s Results (Smith and Goldman 1999), 226 |
New Uncertainties Centering on Brightness (Macuda and Timney 1999),
229 | The Evidence for a Neutral Point (Geisbauer et al. 2004), 233 |
Color Preferences (Hall et al. 2005), 236 | Do Horses Perceive the Entire
Color Spectrum? (Hall et al. 2006), 237 | The Neutral Point: Break or
Continuity? (Roth, Balkenius, and Kelber 2007), 244 | Equine Dichromacy:
A Qualification (Hanggi, Ingersoll, and Waggoner 2007), 250 | A New
Experiment in Chromatic Discrimination (Blackmore et al. 2008), 255 |
How Well Do Horses Discriminate Color in Half-Light? (Roth, Balkenius,
and Kelber 2008), 262 | Colors That Can Be Fairly Well Discriminated
across the Light Spectrum (Timney and Macuda 2009), 265 | A Provisional
Summing Up, 270
9. Hearing in Horses, 272
Nature, Representation, and Characterization of Acoustic Information, 272 |
The Equine Auditory System: Anatomy and Physiology, 280 | Behavioral
Exploration of Equine Auditory Perception, 289
10. Equine Chemical Perception: Odors, Pheromones, Tastes, and Flavors, 330
Olfactory Perception in the Horse, 331 | From Taste to Flavor, 354
11. Tactile Perception in the Horse, 369
Structure and Function of Horse Skin, 369 | Receptors: Equine Sensory
Pathways and Skin Sensitivity, 374 | Mutual Grooming and Neuro-
physiological Response, 378 | Tactile Stimulation and Interspecific Social
Relationships, 385
Conclusion, 388
References, 393
Acknowledgments, 425
Index, 427
Color plates follow page 218
FOREWORD TO THE FRENCH EDITION
Michel-Antoine Leblanc has gotten us used to books that are both
comprehensive and precise, relying closely on the scientific literature,
which is otherwise largely inaccessible to the public. This book is
no exception. It constitutes an impressive and singular review of
the major research carried out in the area of equine cognition. Like
any review, it reflects a state of affairs at a given moment, which
the author himself points out in highlighting persisting gaps and the
need for continuing research.
This perspective is important, especially at a time when (too)
much information, at times contradictory, is being generated on
horses’ capacities for understanding, their modes of communication,
their intelligence, or quite simply how they perceive the world. The
author shares with us both his deep scientific and general knowledge,
helping us to place the most recent work in a historical context and
showing us how science advances little by little, through periods of
regression, contradiction, and sometimes a step in the right direc-
tion. Consequently, nothing is ever definitively settled. Rather, an
effort is made to develop questions precise enough that experiments
can answer them. He conceals none of the challenges intrinsic to the
species: The horse is a large, cumbersome domestic animal that is not
easy to test. His observation is apt: We still know very little about
the perceptual and cognitive capacities of the horse. His conclusion
is simple: Let us remain humble and accept that we cannot know
everything about this creature that is so close to us and yet so distant.
Humility notwithstanding, this book makes an essential point.
Even if we do not possess all the anatomical, physiological, and
behavioral information required for fully comprehending the percep-
tual world of the horse, we do know one thing: Its world is very
different from ours! Horses do not see, hear, or smell the way we
do. They differ in all these modalities. Although some scientists are
tempted by images purporting to show what a horse sees, based on
ix