Horses know how to read people's emotions

Horses can distinguish angry or cheerful faces, even tilting their faces to see a picture showing negative emotions.

Horses know how to distinguish between angry and happy faces.

According to a study published February 10 in the journal Biology Letters, 28 horses were shown color photographs with different facial expressions within 30 seconds. A group of psychologists at the University of Sussex, England, monitor their reactions.

When watching the photo with the face of an angry and frowning man, the heartbeat of the horses increased dramatically. More importantly, they tilted their faces to look at the picture with their left eye, an expression related to negative stimuli. Information from the horse's left eye is transferred to the right brain hemisphere , the area that identifies dangers from the environment, the researchers said.

" This study is very interesting because it shows that horses have the ability to read emotions of other species, " said co-author Amy Smith, co-author of the study. " We know for a long time that horses are a species with a complex social ability, but this is the first time we have seen that they can distinguish positive and negative expressions on people's faces ."

The horses from the Sussex and Surrey horses in the south of England also reacted strongly to an angry face rather than a happy face.

" Identifying angry faces is like a warning signal, allowing them to predict the negative behaviors of humans like being rude ," Smith explained.