Horses communicate with their ears, apparently...

A friend posted this link to me. Did have to chuckle.... Wonder how much in funds went into this... They could have turned up at any horse yard and got exactly the same answer and result! Makes you wonder why they are bothering to 'research' such things, or are they so ignorant they never knew that equine people already knew this!!!
 
Penny Less said:
Somewhere there is a University/college that is full of people discovering the bleeding obvious !
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I can't understand it. I work in a Russell Group university and getting research funding for the academics is my job. They have to jump through hoops to get any funding at all, it is super-competitive, and the rate of successful applications is less than 30%. This sort of blue-skies research just isn't funded these days. Most is directed research, ie. a call on a particular topic is put out and the academics are invited to bid because they already have a very good track record. Most sponsors only want to fund research which will either produce something they can make money out of, or it is in the public interest, so climate change etc is well-funded. I'd love to know who the funding source is for this one.
 
Can horses tell where other horses are looking and not just where their heads are pointing? Separate question: can they tell where we or other animals are looking? The authors suggests their results show this, but I am not so sure. I have posted a comment to this effect on the original article web page which needs to be approved by the editor.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)00739-8
 
minkymoo said:
No way do they?! I've always wondered why they swivelled their ears around so much. <sarcastic> ;)
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Well, it is possible that horses swivel their ears round simply to locate and hear sounds better. But it is also bloomin' obvious to people who know horses that they also use them for communication, e.g. when they are pinned back aggressively.

One specific question the paper was attempting to address was whether horses use ear position to tell where another horse is attending. I'm not sure they managed to prove that conclusively, although their results are suggestive. It seems to me that, in the artificial situation they set up in their experiments, which way the head was pointing was enough of a cue by itself (without additional cues from eyes and ears) to make them favour one bucket over another.
 
Penny Less said:
also what use are they putting this discovery to (sorry that's awful grammar)
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It's pure research. It may have an application in future, or not. TBH I can't think one offhand. On the other hand, I for one am interested in finding out more about exactly how horses perceive the world, including 'useless' knowledge like what colours they can see/distinguish. It is of particular interest to me whether horses are naturally sensitive to gaze direction.

Whether that kind of research should be funded out of the public purse is another matter entirely!
 
Penny Less said:
Somewhere there is a University/college that is full of people discovering the bleeding obvious !
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Sometimes things we think are bleeding obvious turn out not to be. It used to be 'bleeding obvious', to some people at least, that horses crib out of boredom, but as a result of scientific research we know better now. Obvious that windsuckers swallow air? Not so.
 
fburton said:
It's pure research. It may have an application in future, or not. TBH I can't think one offhand. On the other hand, I for one am interested in finding out more about exactly how horses perceive the world, including 'useless' knowledge like what colours they can see/distinguish. It is of particular interest to me whether horses are naturally sensitive to gaze direction.

Whether that kind of research should be funded out of the public purse is another matter entirely!
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I may not be public money. Alot of research is funded by private companies/industry.
 
fatpiggy said:
I may not be public money. Alot of research is funded by private companies/industry.
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Indeed, and occasionally good, scientifically rigorous research is done by private individuals, essentially self-funded - although it would be harder to get such research published in the commercial journals when the researcher or researchers are not affiliated to academic organisations.
 
Interesting post, fat piggy. It says it is a funded PhD from Sussex Uni and another source. Like you, I thought that funding was so competitive these days that even medical research is hard pushed to obtain funds. Perhaps it's part of a bigger project ?
 
cobgoblin said:
Wasn't done by the same lot that discovered that horses recognise their owners was it?
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If we're thinking of the same bit of research, yes it was the same group in the University of Sussex. However, the discovery wasn't merely that horses recognize their owners. There would be nothing remarkable or new in that at all! They also found pretty strong evidence that horses could form some kind of mental picture of their owners that allowed them to combine info from sight and sound. Although we could have guessed it, this was something we didn't know previously.
 
I think part of the problem is the way that original research is filtered through the media - things can get oversimplified or misrepresented.
 
I have no issue with pure research -- god knows, I'm trying to get a job as a freakin' historian and the one thing you can say about history research is that it has no quantifiable "impact," which really means, can it make money, on anything, which is pants when you're forced to describe the impact of your research in grant apps. There is very little interest in pure research these days.

I suspect we (including me; I made sarcastic comments too) are being a little harsh on the research in question. I am sure if you read the paper, it would be more interesting and nuanced than what is reported in the media. The mainstream media is laughably bad at reporting research.

Edit: cross-posted with fburton. *snap*
 
fburton said:
I think part of the problem is the way that original research is filtered through the media - things can get oversimplified or misrepresented.
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very true.


although some of the welfare/behaviour projects do make the mind boggle. Like the million pound one that monitored pigs in transit from the UK to Spain. The pigs got hotter when in Spain. Who knew.

Its the process of science. Even something looks completely obvious, it has to stand up to rigorous testing before you can go on and do the next (often more interesting) bit. We've lost so much pure research that I'm glad it still exists somewhere.
 
Yet another treatise from the School of the blindingly bleedin' obvious. Can I get funding to prove that when horses are scared they run away or that when it rains we get wet?
 
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