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Scientists Discover That Horses Can Use Symbols To Talk To Us (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes from a report via Science Magazine: Scientists have discovered that horses can learn to use another human tool for communicating: pointing to symbols. They join a short list of other species, including some primates, dolphins, and pigeons, with this talent. Scientists taught 23 riding horses of various breeds to look at a display board with three icons, representing wearing or not wearing a blanket. Horses could choose between a "no change" symbol or symbols for "blanket on" or "blanket off." The horses did not touch the symbols randomly, but made their choices based on the weather. If it was wet, cold, and windy, they touched the blanket-on icon; horses that were already wearing a blanket nosed the "no change" image. But when the weather was sunny, the animals touched the blanket-off symbol; those that weren't blanketed pressed the "no change" icon. The study's strong results show that the horses understood the consequences of their choices, say the scientists, who hope that other researchers will use their method to ask horses more questions. The report has been published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science.
We can ask them "why the long face?"
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Herd/pack animals need to communicate with each other in some way so the brain structures must be present to allow them to communicate using either voice or body language or in this case pointing.
Cue Jennifer Garner joke in 3, 2, 1...
At long last Sarah Jessica Parker wont freeze during winter ever again!!!
Welcome our Blanket wearing (or not if its' nice and warm) equine overlords!
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Though they prefer using their own symbols. Jumping into your bowl of spaghetti means "my food dish is empty" and crapping in them means "my kitty litter is full". And them lying curled up in a corner means "no change necessary, slave!"
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This doesn't seem that impressive. My dog scratches at the picture of dog food when it's hungry, and if he's not he just whimpers when I ask him.
If horses can communicate, surely there is hope for slashdot editors.
-linux... they can't *give* that shit away.
Hmmm... While it has been shown in a variety of ways going back at least as far as the original Mr. Ed that horses are smart and capable of performing a large repetoire of tricks, I do wonder in this particular case if the horses are touching the symbols at the appropriate times because they understand what the symbols mean, or because they were trained to touch the symbols at the appropriate times. It is a vitally important distinction. Just how did they teach the meaning of each symbol to them without instead accidentally training them to perform without any true understanding of the symbols themselves? Humans have instinctual behaviours towards pattern recognition, anthromorphism, self-delusion, and rationalisation, thus experimential methods must be very carefully designed to remove these influences.
Avatar of the God(s) Random
The horses seem to have made a breakthrough where the Dolphins and Chimps have all but thrown in the towel. Humans are finally realising the rest of the planet has been happily communicating for years. The 60's documentary about our species interpreter Dr Dolittle should never have been dismissed so quickly as a conspiricy theory.
As a dog, I am highly offended by this article. When I grab my leash and whine, my human knows to let me show him around our territory. How is that not using a human tool to communicate? Or is seeing a leash an instinctive reaction in humans that causes them to need to be led by someone smaller than them? That must be it because the little humans never let me walk them when they see the leash.
Never mind, I guess they're not racist. Humans are just dumber than I realized. I thought they understood me, but apparently they're simply too primitive.
I always knew that that was a documentary!
option 1) please nail more metal to my feet
option 2) I'll go natural thank you
Here's a video of a cow that clearly comes up with a plan, then carries it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Surely I cannot be the only person who's curious what the "no change" icon they used looks like. :)
Ever see a movie where a stockman/cowboy splits a cow from the herd? A good horse is doing 99% of the work; the rider is just pointing to the cow.
In the UK, horses study for 'Hay Levels'
So it's GGAA instead in GNAA now ?
When you staggered out of the saloon wasted, your horse would get you home safely. Long before Siri and Tesla, a lot of intelligent navigation must have been done that way.
All over the west, horses do work; they can get to, and through terrain ATV's can't (thus making a mockery of the "all terrain" part), they are very good at assisting in collecting and collaring livestock because they know what the task is, and can operate in concert with from the person sitting them who is trying to rope or herd the animal.
You really should get out more.
Now they can sue xkcd for using their name in vain!
Adding subjective observations like claiming 'simple action/reward conditioning' and 'doesn't confirm anything' doesn't really confirm anything about the experiment itself. It simply reflects what you would expect from conditioned behavior of a disagreeable AC.
the horses understood the consequences of their choices
Wow. That's better than most voters in the modern world...
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
You'll never convince the "dumb animals are okay to exploit" crowd. They're not as smart as that cow. Instead, they're possessed of a truly massive amount of hubris. It's kind of like a brain-eating fungus.
Yes, Wilbur, it is a documentary!
of course of course
I'm just glad this article wasn't read to me out loud because I would probably have heard it as "Horses Can Use Cymbals To Talk To Us" and then been immensely disappointed.
riding today/no riding today
Did they also have a symbol with a fatso on a horse?
Remember the last part of Gulliver's Travels? Where G. encounters the houyhnhnms, who are more intelligent and civilized than the humanoid yahoos?
Development is programmable; Discovery is not programmable. (Fuller)
I'd like to know what the No Change image looks like. Did I miss that somewhere in the article?
the horses understood the consequences of their choices
Which is way better than must Trump voters do....
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Human: Wait why are you running away?
Horse: So long, and thanks for all the oats!
...Melissa Rivers too.
Talk to me when they can master pointers.
it is a good assumption that most animals can do it. Maybe we should figure out a good mechanism to give them the ability to do so. Maybe a devices that track the eyes.
Do the researchers faces light up when the horse points to the right symbol?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
have been using this same technique to prep for the debate on Monday. Hillary has been casting about desperately for the icon indicating she would like a glass of water. And Donald is expected to walk on to the debate stage with a blanket draped over him.
to create graven images. They are just more disobedient.
I once asked one if Windows was any good.
"Neigh!"
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
what sort of bitt rate are we talking here?
tone
How did horses get ahold of a set of cymbols and how did they ever bang them together.
the final trial in the series was not actually part of the study plan. That kid who was sent to get the signs printed, they did them by the dozen so he cooked it up, it was his idea. With mock earnestness the signs were placed on the post and the horse was led around. They were,
1. A symbol representing quantum "spooky action at a distance".
2. A symbol representing a horse indicating a choice by indicating a symbol indicating a choice indicated by a symbol indicating a choice, by a horse.
3. A duck. No seriously, a duck. Really.
The horse pricked back its ears and leaned away from spooky towards the duck, then swung back slightly, as if to indicate
blurred motion at the edges of vision, for a moment clearly the edges repeated which warp through the center accompanied by a sudden and awful smell of burning plastic (isn't there always?) and a sound half crackling half laughter yet horrifyingly like reality being crumpled up like a newspaper or the sudden horror of blackened paper edges when no flame is visible all to hide something unthinkably
NO CARRIER
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
I prefer Mr. Dead (a buddy story with brainnnss).
A corpse is a corpse of course of course, that is of course unless the corpse is the zombie Mr. Dead!
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Notoriously, horses have eyes on the sides of their heads, and a very wide field of vision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equine_vision
"Like most prey animals, the horse's eyes are set on the sides of its head, allowing it close to a 350 range of monocular vision.[10] Horses have the largest eyes of any land mammal,[11] and are lateral-eyed, meaning their eyes are positioned on the sides of their heads.[12] This means horses have a range of vision of about 350, with approximately 65 of this being binocular vision and the remaining 285 monocular vision.[11]"
Like all animals, horses can be trained to associate things.
A cat that is hungry is NOT talking to you when it hops onto you in the morning in bed.... it has simply learned that doing that eventually leads to you feeding it. When it does that, the cat's not saying "hey, person, I am hungry". The cat is wanting food and has figured out what button to press to get the human to dispense food. It does not know that it is communicating with you, any more than it is communicating with a ball of yarn when it pushes the yarn and the yarn falls down. The cat is just playing cause-and-effect.
Same thing with "astro-chimps". They learned that when certain lights lit on a panel, they got morsels of food if they flipped the right switches. None of these primates was thinking about firing retro rockets, orbiting the Earth, being hot or cold, etc. Light flash->switch->FOOD! (no "communication" needed). This was enough for scientists on the ground to know that a living creature in space could function. The chimps never actually controlled anything, and never actually communicated. They were slightly intelligemnt crash test dummies being remotely triggered to prove they were alert and functional by responding to a light and getting food.
Animals work that way. The learn early-on in life how to get food and water, find reasonably safe places to sleep, shelter from bad weather and predators, etc. NONE off this requires or involves the communication of thoughts or ideas.
One would think that geeky people would be better at spotting false anthropomorphizing.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mr. Ed.
People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mister Ed will never speak unless he has something to say.
A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?
Well listen to this.
I am Mister Ed.
But did the horses recognize the *symbols* ? if the symbols were painted on a board, and they just pointed their nose at different spots for the same recurring results is different than if they kept moving the actual positions of the symbols around
Horse 1: Hey, you know those creatures who put us in this tree cave?
Horse 2: Yeah, what about them?
Horse 1: Have you ever noticed that some of them are darker than others?
Horse 2: Yes, I have noticed that. How come?
Horse 1: Is it just me or do the dark ones smell really bad?
Horse 2: Not just that, they seem really lazy and a lot less intelligent than the lighter ones.
Horse 1: I'm glad that I'm not the only one who noticed this.