%0 Conference Paper %F Poster %T How horses (Equus caballus) see the world: humans as significant objects %+ Ethologie animale et humaine (EthoS) %A Fureix, Carole %A Jégo, Patrick %A Hausberger, Martine %< avec comité de lecture %B Behavior 2009 - 31st International Ethological Conference %C Rennes, France %8 2009-08-19 %D 2009 %K human–horse interactions %K significance of humans %K aggressiveness %K work-related context %Z Life Sciences [q-bio]Poster communications %X The aim of this study was to determine whether horses have a kind of memory of humans(based on previous interactions), leading to a general significance of humans revealed by theirreactions to humans in subsequent interactions. This hypothesis was tested on 59 adultanimals (coming from 3 riding schools with similar life conditions) using three types ofbehavioural tests, which involved an unknown experimenter and corresponded to threepotential memories of the relation (not work-related, using work-related objects, unfamiliarworking task). To get a broad overview of the horses’ reactions to humans, we recorded bothinvestigative and aggressive behaviours during the tests, representing respectively a “positive”and a “negative” memory of the relationship. It appeared that while correlations between testsrevealed a general perception of humans as positive or negative, unusual tests, i.e. that are notusually performed, elicited more positive reactions. Thus, some horses reacted positively to amotionless person in their box, but negatively when this same person approached them, forexample with a halter. In overall, aggressive reactions to the experimenter were more reliableindicators of the relationship than positive reactions. Altogether, the results support thecreation of a memory of humans by horses which impacts their reactions in subsequentinteractions. %G English %L hal-01354784 %U https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01354784 %~ UNIV-RENNES1 %~ CNRS %~ ETHOS %~ ETHOS-PEGASE %~ COMUE-NORMANDIE %~ UR1-UFR-SVE %~ UR1-HAL %~ UR1-SDV %~ TEST-UNIV-RENNES %~ TEST-UR-CSS %~ UNIV-RENNES %~ UNICAEN %~ UR1-BIO-SA %~ ETHOS-CIRCE