Be careful, if you’re scared, your pony will feel it! This warning that she heard regularly when she was a young rider in an equestrian center in the metropolitan area of Tours, Léa Lansade decided to check it. Having become an ethologist within the “Cognition, ethology, animal welfare” team at INRAE in Nouzilly, she launched a vast four-year study to determine whether horses can really sense our emotions. The first results of this project, entitled “Emoudour”, already tend to show that they perceive the smells of fear, joy and perhaps even sadness.
Facial expressions and racing heart
A year ago, the team launched a first call for volunteers to collect the smell of our emotions. Meet at a cinema in downtown Tours, with a dedicated t-shirt and compresses under your arms, for 20-minute sequences provoking joy, sadness, fear or disgust, as well as a “neutral” sequence to control samples.
Stored at -80°C, the samples were then presented to 60 Welsh ponies from the INRAE breeding facility. “Taking turns, we make them feel the same emotion three times in a row, which causes a certain weariness, and the fourth time a neutral sample. If the horse distinguishes the emotion of the witness, it will start sniffing again, showing curiosity”describes Léa Lansade.
Freshly analyzed, the results of this first phase tend to confirm that horses do indeed smell the smell of fear, that they would prefer the smells of joy and that they would succeed in distinguishing that of sadness. It remains to be seen what these human emotions provoke in them.
See you at the cinema again. For a new group of volunteers… But also for the horses. A box with a screen has been specially designed for them in the research center in Nouzilly. “From previous studies, we already know that when we show scenes with actors who play different emotions, horses are sensitive to them”notes the ethologist. Their reactions were captured by cameras and heart sensors. “Faced with fear, for example, we see facial expressions, very fine in horses, change and the heart rate accelerate”illustrates the researcher.
The objective this time will be to add the smell corresponding to the emotion expressed on the screen, to see if this amplifies the reactions. “This time, we will also include sheep in the process”adds Léa Lansade. Who will soon be able to tell the young rider she was – and many others – whether or not horses “sense” our fear. Among other emotions.
Call for volunteers for the Emoudour project
To lead this new phase of the project, the team needs volunteers to lend their emotions. Four collection sessions are organized on Wednesday mornings, from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., November 27, December 4, 11 and 18, in a cinema in Tours.
Information and registration at [email protected]
