Applied Animal Behaviour Science 169 (2015) 38–42

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/applanim

Development of a standard test to assess negative reinforcement

learning in horses
Line Peerstrup Ahrendt a,∗ , Rodrigo Labouriau b , Jens Malmkvist a , Christine J. Nicol c ,
Janne Winther Christensen a
a
Dept. Animal Science, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark
b
Dept. Mathematics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
c
School of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol, Langford, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Most horses are trained by negative reinforcement. Currently, however, no standardised test for evalu-
Received 14 March 2015 ating horses’ negative reinforcement learning ability is available. The aim of this study was to develop an
Received in revised form 15 May 2015 objective test to investigate negative reinforcement learning in horses. Twenty-four Icelandic horses (3
Accepted 17 May 2015
years old) were included in this study. The horses were tested in a pressure-release task on three separate
Available online 28 May 2015
days with 10, 7 and 5 trials on each side, respectively. Each trial consisted of pressure being applied on the
hindquarter with an algometer. The force of the pressure was increased until the horse moved laterally
Keywords:
away from the point of pressure. There was a significant decrease in required force over trials on the first
Algometry
Horse behaviour
test day (P < 0.001), but not the second and third day. The intercepts on days 2 and 3 differed significantly
Learning performance from day 1 (P < 0.001), but not each other. Significantly stronger force was required on the right side com-
Operant conditioning pared to the left (P < 0.001), but there was no difference between first and second side tested (P = 0.56).
Pressure-release Individual performance was evaluated by median-force and the change in force over trials on the first
Horse training test day. These two measures may explain different characteristics of negative reinforcement learning. In
conclusion, this study presents a novel, standardised test for evaluating negative reinforcement learning
ability in horses.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction negatively reinforced test. Consequently, investigations of horses’

The value of domestic horses is dependent on their ability to
learn the various tasks set by humans. The horse sector would
therefore benefit from the development of standardised methods
to measure learning in horses. Equine learning ability has been
investigated mainly in tests based on positive reinforcement (Nicol,
2002), including visual discrimination tasks (Gabor and Gerken,
2010), target touching and following (Christensen et al., 2012;
Valenchon et al., 2013) and detour learning (Baragli et al., 2011).
In contrast, most horse training is based on negative reinforcement
(McGreevy and McLean, 2010). Studies have shown that horses’
general learning ability cannot be evaluated based on perfor-
mance in one test alone (Visser et al., 2003; Wolff and Hausberger,
1996). Rather, learning ability appears to be specific to the learning
mechanism targeted, thus, performance in a test based on posi-
tive reinforcement does not necessarily predict performance in a
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 8715 4279.
E-mail address: peerstrup@gmail.com (L.P. Ahrendt).
ability to learn through negative reinforcement and factors influ-
encing this ability require a test based on negative reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement is an instrumental learning mechanism,
where the instrumental response turns off an aversive stimulus
(Domjan, 2010). By turning off the aversive stimulus the animal is
rewarded for the instrumental response and will be more likely to
perform the same response when it encounters the same aversive
stimulus in the future.
In horse training the aversive stimulus is often some kind of
pressure to the body of the horse, such as leg pressure or rein ten-
sion. The force of the pressure is increased until the correct response
is obtained and rewarded by release of the pressure (McGreevy
and McLean, 2010). Currently, no standardised test for evaluating
equine learning ability through negative reinforcement is available,
and the present study aimed to develop an objective test in this
area. Learning was evaluated in a pressure-release task, where the
pressure was applied in a standardised manner by an algometer,
which also measured the force of the required pressure.
We hypothesised that the force required for the horse to respond
correctly would decrease with repetition within as well as between
days.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2015.05.005
0168-1591/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 L.P. Ahrendt et al. / Applied Animal Behaviour Science 169 (2015) 38–42 39

2. Materials and methods

The experiment was conducted during November 2012 and

conformed to the Guidelines for ethical treatment of animals
in applied animal behaviour and welfare research [http://www.
applied-ethology.org/ethical guidelines.html].

2.1. Animals

Twenty-four Icelandic horses (3 years old) participated in this

study (12 mares and 12 geldings). The horses came from 14 differ-
ent owners, but had been at the research facility for 3 months prior
to this experiment. All horses had only received routine manage-
ment before arrival at the research facility. At the research facility
the horses were kept at pasture divided by sex into two groups.
They had ad libitum access to haylage, water, grass from the pas-
ture, and a shed for shelter. Upon arrival all horses were trained in
basic handling, such as wearing halter, being caught on pasture and
being led (Marsbøll and Christensen, 2015). The horses had partic-
ipated in another behavioural experiment, where half the horses
had been trained in five handling exercises (training group), e.g.
start and stop, backing, walking sideways and walking in circles (see
Marsbøll and Christensen (2015) for details). During these exer-
cises, the horses were mainly handled from the front, i.e. they were
not more accustomed to being handled from one side. The exer-
cises did not include hind leg yielding as the task applied in the
present experiment. The other half of the horses (control group)
were not trained in these exercises, but spent the same amount of
time in the experimental arena as the trained horses (Marsbøll and
Christensen, 2015). All horses were sound and healthy.

2.2. The algometer

Pressure was applied and its force measured by a ProD algome-

ter (TopCat Metrology Ltd., UK (http://www.topcatmetrology.
com)) with a pressure-surface-diameter of 16 mm. The force was
measured in Newton (N). The algometer was manually operated
with a red and a green light indicating if the force was increased
according to the chosen rate of 4 N/s. The actuator of the algometer
was calibrated up to 30 N.

2.3. Methods

The handler held the horse in halter and lead rope, while the
experimenter applied the pressure on the horse’s hindquarter. The
handler and experimenter were always the same two persons. Prior
to testing, the horses were habituated to the surroundings and
stood calmly when the experimenter approached and stroked the
hindquarter of the horse.
The horses were tested on three separate days with four and five
days between. Each test day consisted of 10 (Day 1), 7 (Day 2) and
5 (Day 3) trials on each side of the horse. The number of trials was
reduced on the second and third day because these young horses
appeared to become impatient and less attentive with increasing
number of trials within days, i.e. they were increasingly difficult to
get to stand still between trials, were nibbling the handler more
and pawed more. In each trial pressure was applied until the horse
responded correctly by moving at least one hind leg laterally away
from the point of pressure, i.e. if pressure was applied on the left
side the horse should move to the right. The side tested first was
randomly chosen for each individual, but balanced according to
sex. Sides of an individual horse were tested in the same order on
all three test days. The first side was always finished with all trials
before continuing with the trials on the second side. A mark was
drawn on the approximate middle of both sides of the hindquarters
to ensure that the pressure was applied on the same spot in each
Fig. 1. Point of pressure. The yellow dot indicates the spot on the horse’s hindquarter
where the pressure was applied (For interpretation of the color information in this
figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of the article.).
trial (Fig. 1). In each trial, the horse was placed so that all four legs
were weight bearing. The experimenter then placed the algome-
ter on the marked spot and increased the force according to the
set rate. When the horse responded correctly the algometer was
immediately removed to release the pressure and thereby reward
the horse. When the actuator limit of 30 N was reached without
correct response, the experimenter used the hand, not operating
the algometer, to apply the extra force necessary to obtain the cor-
rect response. This was done to prevent a connection between not
responding and the reward of removing the pressure which would
have disrupted the learning process. In trials where the actuator
limit was exceeded a “max” was recorded for the force. Regard-
less of the side of the horse the experimenter faced the point of
pressure and used the right hand to operate the algometer. Between
40 L.P. Ahrendt et al. / Applied Animal Behaviour Science 169 (2015) 38–42
each trial, the handler repositioned the horse for the next trial. The
inter-trial interval was approximately 15–60 s, depending on how
long it took the handler to get the horse in the right position for the
next trial.
2.4. Statistics
2.4.1. General learning
The necessary force to obtain the correct response exceeded
the actuator limit (30 N) in 28% of the trials. Since the probability
of having a censored observation depends on the same explana-
tory variables used to model the force, the censoring mechanism is
informative. Informative censoring rules out the use of many classic
statistical models for censored observations (e.g. models for sur-
vival analysis or event-history analysis (Kalbfleisch and Prentice,
2011)). Additionally, the distribution of the force was unknown,
i.e. classic distributions such as the normal, log-normal or expo-
nential did not adjust to the distribution of the force. Therefore,
the force was modelled using a semiparametric accelerated fail-
ure time model (AFTM; function aftgee from the R-package aftgee
(Chiou et al., 2014b)) inferred via least-squares and generalised
estimating equations (Chiou et al., 2014a; Jin et al., 2006). This
model accounted for the right censoring and the repeated meas-
ures on the same horse. As explanatory variables, test day (1–3),
side (right/left), first or second side tested, sex of the horses
(mare/gelding) and treatment group in a previous experiment
(training/control) were included as discrete variables and trial as
continuous variable.
2.4.2. Individual performance
Individual performance was evaluated by frequency of max-
trials, i.e. trials where the required force exceeded the actuator
limit of 30 N (#max), median-force (Median-force), and the change
in force over trials on Day 1 (Slope1). The median was chosen
over average because it is independent of the censoring, when less
than 50% values are censored. If more than 50% were censored the
median was assigned 30 N. #max and Median-force were calculated
for each horse, day and side to investigate correlation between days
and sides. As the slope on day 1 approximated linearity, Slope1 was
calculated by a linear regression, where trials exceeding the actua-
tor limit were set equal to 30 N. A value for each side was calculated
for Slope1.
Day 1
35
30
25
Force (N)
15 10
5
0 20
1 2 3 4 5 6
trial
Fig. 2. Development in force over trials within test days. Dots indicate estimated means for force per trial for the left side on non-trained control horses. The right side
required 1.4 times stronger force (P < 0.001) and the trained horses required 0.6 times lighter force (P = 0.09). The lines show the regression curve for the development over
trials. Only the slope on Day 1 is significantly different from 0 (P < 0.001). The intercepts on Day 2 and Day 3 is significantly different from Day 1 (P < 0.001), but not each other
(P = 0.24).
Finally, we investigated if the proposed performance values
ranked the horses similarly. All correlations were calculated by
Spearman’s rank correlation rho.
All analyses were done in R version 3.1.2 (R Core Team, 2014)
with significance evaluated at P = 0.05 and tendencies between
0.05 < P < 0.1.
3. Results
The applied force ranged from 0.04 N to the actuator limit of
30 N (median [25; 75% quartile]: 17.83 N [8.22; 30]). There was one
instance of what could have been interpreted as a threat to kick,
but generally the horses tried to avoid the pressure by moving side-
ways or forward or backwards, the two latter being prohibited by
the handler. Some horses moved only one leg in response to the
pressure, whereas others took several steps sideways; both types of
response were rewarded. The horses had between 0 and 86% trials
exceeding the actuator limit of 30 N during the entire test (median
[25; 75% quartile]: 24% [7; 40]). Two horses had no trials exceeding
the limit in the entire test, whereas four horses had all trials on one
side exceeding on the first day. In general, the frequency of exceed-
ing trials decreased over the test days, with 35% the first day and
22% on the second and third day.
3.1. Learning through negative reinforcement
The logarithm of the force depended on a linear combina-
tion of an interaction between day and trial and additively of
side and treatment in the prior experiment. There was no differ-
ence between the first and the second side tested (AFTM: z = 0.59,
P = 0.56) or between mares and geldings (AFTM: z = 1.18, P = 0.24).
The interaction between trial and day implies that the expo-
nential decay in the force over trials was not the same on all
three test days. There was a significant exponential decay in force
along the first day (AFTM: z = −3.70, P < 0.001, Fig. 2), but not along
the second (AFTM: z = 1.12, P = 0.26, Fig. 2) and third day (AFTM:
z = 1.23, P = 0.22, Fig. 2). The intercept for the exponential regres-
sion curve was significantly higher on Day 1 compared to Day 2
(AFTM: z = −6.02, P < 0.001, Fig. 2) and 3 (AFTM: z = −5.39, P < 0.001,
Fig. 2), whereas the intercept on Day 2 and 3 was not different from
each other (AFTM: z = −1.18, P = 0.24, Fig. 2). The right side of the
Day 2 Day 3
7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5
trial trial
 L.P. Ahrendt et al. / Applied Animal Behaviour Science 169 (2015) 38–42 41

Table 1 horses’ learning ability in a negative reinforcement situation, which

Median and quartiles of measures of individual learning performance in a negative
is relevant for training of horses.
reinforcement based task.
The lack of further decrease in force on day 2 and day 3 may
Performance value Median [25; 75% quartile] indicate that the horses had reached an asymptotic level. However
Median-force on Day 1 (N) 21.05 [15.62; 27.43] it is, of course, unknown if further learning might occur on subse-
Frequency of max trials 2.5 [1; 5.5] quent days. We chose to reduce the number of trials on the second
(#max) and further on the third day because we noted some impatience in
the horses, which could have reduced their attention towards the
Right Left
task.
Change in force over trials −0.45 [−1.21; 0.03] −0.41 [−1.46; 0.22] Horse trainers and riders may argue that at least some horses
on Day 1 (Slope1)
can be trained to respond to lighter pressure, than what is pre-
sented in this study (1 N is equivalent to 0.102 kg). It is very likely
that prolonged training can lead to horses responding to very light
horses required 1.4 times [95% CI: 1.3; 1.5] stronger force than the
tactile cues accommodated by other signals, i.e. a visual signal that
left side (AFTM: z = 3.57, P < 0.001) and the horses trained in the
precedes the pressure, through classical conditioning. From studies
previous experiment tended to require 0.6 times [95% CI: 0.4; 0.8]
investigating avoidance learning it has been shown that horses can
lighter force than the untrained control horses (AFTM: z = −1.72,
learn to connect a conditioned stimulus and an aversive, uncon-
P = 0.09).
ditioned reinforcer, like air puffs (Visser et al., 2003) and electric
shocks (McCall et al., 1993). Although, the ability to form these
3.2. Individual performance connections may be important when considering horses’ trainabil-
ity, this study aimed to investigate negative reinforcement learning
Both median-force and frequency of max trials correlated sig- and, thus, we tried to prevent the horses from responding to signals
nificantly between sides (Spearman rank correlation rho: Median- other than the pressure from the algometer.
force: rho = 0.63, P < 0.001 and #max: rho = 0.60, P < 0.001) and days Contrary to our expectations, we found a significant effect of the
(Spearman rank correlation rho: Median-force: rho = 0.56–0.79, side of the horse; the right side always requiring more force than the
P < 0.01 and #max: rho = 0.64–0.77, P < 0.001) and we, thus, con- left side. The literature does not offer a general population tendency
tinued with one value for day 1 averaged over sides (Table 1). Five towards right or left handedness/sidedness in horses (McGreevy
horses had more than 50% censored trials and were, thus, assigned and Rogers, 2005; Murphy et al., 2005), which could explain our
30 N in the Median-force. Slope1 did not correlate between sides results. McGreevy and Rogers (2005) proposed that motor laterality
(Spearman rank correlation rho: rho = 0.32, P = 0.13; Table 2). The in horses is affected by age and/or training; older horses gener-
left and right side slopes also did not correlate on the second and ally showing stronger laterality tendencies than younger horses.
third day (Spearman rank correlation rho: P = 0.49 and P = 0.58, Icelandic horses are typically led from the front and the horses in
respectively). present study were minimally handled at arrival at the research
centre, which would suggest them to be more ambidextrous. An
3.3. Correlations between performance values alternative explanation is the experimental setup, where the same
right-handed experimenter performed all the trials. Because the
We found a high degree of correlation between Median-force experimenter used her right hand on both sides, this may have
and #max (Spearman rank correlation rho: P < 0.001, Table 2). caused a slight difference in position on each side, which may have
Slope1 on the left side correlated significantly with Median-force caused the side difference. This should be investigated further and
(P = 0.02, Table 2) and tended to correlate to #max (Spearman rank needs to be considered to obtain valid results.
correlation rho: P = 0.097, Table 2), whereas the slopes on the right It is interesting that there appeared to be no transfer of learning
side did not correlate with Median-force or #max (Spearman rank from one side to the other. In humans it appears well established
correlation rho: P > 0.1, Table 2). that after practicing a motor learning task with one limb sub-
sequent performance of the same task with the untrained limb
is facilitated (Kirsch and Hoffmann, 2010). Similarly to humans
4. Discussion (Gibson, 1939), horses appear to easily discriminate between tac-
tile stimuli given in different places on the body (Dougherty and
The results confirmed our main hypothesis. There was a sig- Lewis, 1993), but results in the present study suggest that horses
nificant decrease in force through the trials within the first day do not transfer the information about what the stimulus means. The
and the regression intercept was significantly higher on the first critical brain commissure for interhemispheric transfer is the cor-
day compared to the second and third day. This indicates that the pus callosum (Gooijers and Swinnen, 2014). There is no evidence
horses learned the task through negative reinforcement. Learning that horses’ corpus callosum should be less developed than in other
occurred primarily on the first day whereas the lower intercept on species (Olivares et al., 2001), and Hanggi’s study (Hanggi, 1999)
day 2 compared to day 1 indicates that the horses remembered on a limited number of horses has suggested that horses are able to
the task. Hence, we present a novel, standardised test to evaluate transfer a learned visual discrimination from one eye to the other.
From a practical perspective, however, the result was expected and
Table 2 may be explained by horses’ being very stimulus bound in their
Correlations (Spearman’s rho) between measures of individual negative reinforce- learning (Andrew McLean, personal communication).
ment performance of Icelandic horses. Significant (P < 0.05) values are marked with We did not find any difference between mares and geldings,
bold and tendencies (0.05 < P < 0.10) are in Italics. which was expected and in line with most available literature
Median-force #max Slope1 right (e.g. Visser et al. (2003) and Wolff and Hausberger (1996)). It was
Frequency of max (#max) 0.84
unexpected, however, to find that the previous training of half the
Change in force over trials 0.24 0.13 horses tended to influence the performance in this study, because
(Slope1): right side none of the exercises in this training included hindquarter yielding
Change in force over trials 0.49 0.35 0.32 explicitly (Marsbøll and Christensen, 2015). One of the exercises
(Slope1): left side
consisted of yielding to the side with the entire body, which may
42 L.P. Ahrendt et al. / Applied Animal Behaviour Science 169 (2015) 38–42
suggests that some transfer of behaviour between exercises on the
same side of the horse may occur. However, the tendency towards
trained horses requiring lighter force could also relate to trained
horses having a more well-developed coordination necessary to
perform the sideways movement compared to the non-trained con-
trol horses, thereby making the exercise in the present study easier
to perform.
4.1. Evaluation of individual performance
Currently, there exists no gold standard to evaluate equine neg-
ative reinforcement learning ability. The way learning performance
is measured in this test, or any learning test, may influence the eval-
uation of the individual horse’s learning ability and which factors
influence the performance. The reason for evaluating performance
through different measures is that it potentially explains different
characteristics of learning. In this study we proposed three poten-
tial individual performance values, based on the initial analysis of
the applied force. Median-force and frequency of max-trials (i.e.
where the force exceeded the 30 N limit of the algometer) on the
first day correlated significantly, i.e. a horse with a high median
also had many trials exceeding 30 N. This was expected but not
theoretically necessary, because the median could take any value
between 0 and 30 N, when the frequency of max-trials was below
5. In contrast to the median and frequency of max-trials, which
may express individual tactile sensitivity, the slope on Day 1 may
express the ‘speed of learning’. The slopes on the left and right side,
however, did not correlate and only the slope on the left side corre-
lated with the median. This may be explained by the slopes being
rather unstable. The slopes were calculated from only 10 trials and
may, thus, be easily influenced by a few trials where a high force
was required. This is further supported by the result that the sides
did not correlate on the second and third day either, both of which
were calculated from yet fewer repetitions.
An often used, easy to compare, performance value is number
of sessions to accomplish a set learning criterion. In our study this
was not possible for two reasons; firstly we did not know at which
force we should set this criterion, since this approach had not been
tried before. The other, perhaps more important reason, was that
horses may have different threshold for when the pressure became
sufficiently motivating for them to offer a response (McGreevy and
McLean, 2010). In earlier studies using avoidance learning tasks, the
horses’ reaction threshold to electric shock was established before
initiating the task, to ensure the power of the shock to be sufficient
to get the horses to react (McCall et al., 1993). However, the aim
in these studies was not to investigate if the power of the shock
could be decreased by learning but rather to use it as a motivator
to teach the horses to react to a conditioned stimulus and thereby
avoid the electric shock. This study is the first step in the devel-
opment of a standardised test for negative reinforcement learning
in horses. Further studies are required to validate the test and it
should be investigated if the asymptotic level could be used as a
learning criterion, which would ease the analysis of individual per-
formance. Further studies are also required to relate performance
in this test to tactile sensitivity. The performance in this test should
also be related to other tests of equine learning ability and also to
practical training of horses.
In conclusion, the presented test can be used to evaluate neg-
ative reinforcement learning in horses in a standardised manner.
For future studies using this method, we first recommend to use
an algometer with an actuator calibrated to measure higher force.
Secondly, we recommend using a combination of median-force and
slope to evaluate individual learning performance, as these meas-
ures may explain different parts of learning this task.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the horse owners for kindly allowing
us to use their horses; Anna Feldberg Marsbøll and Maria Vilain
Rørvang for help with the experiments. This study was funded by
The Independent Danish Research Council|Technology and Produc-
tion (grant no. 11-107010) and The Graduate School of Science and
Technology, Aarhus University.
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