Social animals can gain important benefits by inferring the goals behind the behavior of others. However, this ability has only been investigated in a handful of species outside of primates. In this study, we tested for the first time whether domestic horses can interpret human actions as goal directed. We used the classical “unwilling versus unable” paradigm: an experimenter performed three similar actions that have the same outcome, but the goal of the experimenter differed. In the unwilling condition, the experimenter had no intention to give a piece of food to a horse and moved it out of reach when the horse tried to eat it. In the two unable conditions, the experimenter had the intention to give the food to the horse but was unable to do so, either because there was a physical barrier between them or because of the experimenter’s clumsiness. The horses (n = 21) reacted differently in the three conditions: they showed more interest in the unable conditions, especially in the unable clumsy condition, than in the unwilling condition. These results are similar to results found in primates with the same paradigm and suggest that horses might have taken the experimenter’s goal, or even intentions, into account to adapt their behavior. Hence, our study offers more insights into horse interspecific social cognition towards humans.

中文翻译：

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不愿意或愿意但不能：马能将人类的行为解释为目标吗？

社交动物可以通过推断他人行为背后的目标来获得重要利益。但是，仅在灵长类以外的少数物种中研究了这种能力。在这项研究中，我们首次测试了家养马能否将人类行为解释为目标。我们使用了经典的“不愿与不愿”的范例：一个实验者执行了三个具有相同结果的相似动作，但是该实验者的目标有所不同。在不情愿的情况下，实验者无意给马匹喂食，并试图将其移到无法触及的地方。在这两种无法达到的条件下，实验者原本打算将食物喂给马，但由于两者之间存在物理障碍或由于实验者的笨拙而无法这样做。n  = 21）在三种情况下的反应有所不同：与不愿意的条件相比，他们对不适合的条件表现出了更大的兴趣，尤其是在不能笨拙的条件下。这些结果与在具有相同范例的灵长类动物中发现的结果相似，表明马可能已经考虑了实验者的目标甚至意图来适应其行为。因此，我们的研究为马对人的种间社会认知提供了更多见解。