German study has shown that horses are able to exhibit a level of self-control which is surprising in grazing species: they can hold out for a better food reward.
Dr. Désirée Brucks and her researchers at the University of Giessen defined self-control as the ability to forego immediate satisfaction for a better reward in the future. Self-control varies widely both between and within species.
Many grazing species have little self-control, but horses’ complex social interactions in herds may be linked to higher self-controlling abilities. Brucks and the scientists suggest that self-control may be a factor in training horses, or when the horses have to deal with potentially stressful management.
The scientists created a delay-of-gratification test using 52 horses which were taught that they would get the higher-value reward only if they didn’t eat the lower-value reward offered first. In the first phase of the study, familiar experimenters stood just out of reach of the horse with a low-value treat (some hay) in one hand and a high-value treat in the other. They put the low-value reward in reach of the horse and if the horse refrained from eating the hay for 60 seconds, it then got the higher-valued treat. If it ate the hay, it did not get the treat.
The horses were tested in two ways: with the experimenter’s eyes visible and gazing directly at the horse, and with the experimenter’s eyes hidden behind sunglasses.
The researchers found that 20 horses (41.67 percent) were able to wait the required 60 seconds for a higher-valued treat. All horses performed worse when the experimenter’s eyes could not be seen.
In the second experiment, there was one experimenter per horse and 30 more horses were tested. Only two of the horses successfully waited the 60 seconds for the food reward. The horses that had been through the first test tolerated the delays better than the horses that had not been through the experiment.
Horses that had free access to hay were able to better tolerate the food delays than horses that had restricted access to hay. The researchers found no correlations between how the horse owners perceived their animals and the horses’ success in the test. The team also found that horses that pawed at the ground or looked away were more successful at waiting than horses which did not engage in distraction behaviors while waiting.
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