# Horses discriminate human body odours from joy and fear contexts

Léa Lansade, Plotine Jardat, Alexandra Destrez, Fabrice Damon, Zoé Menard-Peroy, Céline Parias, Philippe Barrière, Matthieu Keller, Ludovic Calandreau

► To cite this version:

Léa Lansade, Plotine Jardat, Alexandra Destrez, Fabrice Damon, Zoé Menard-Peroy, et al. Horses discriminate human body odours from joy and fear contexts. 56. congress of the International Society for Applied Ethology (ISAE), Aug 2023, Tallin, Estonia. **hal-04171784**

HAL Id: hal-04171784

https://hal.science/hal-04171784

Submitted on 26 Jul 2023

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<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
# Horses discriminate human body odours from joy and fear contexts

Léa Lansade¹, Plotine Jardat¹, Alexandra Destrez², Fabrice Damon³, Zoé Menard--Peroy¹, Céline Parias¹, Philippe Barrière⁴, Matthieu Keller¹, Ludovic Calandreau¹

¹CNRS, IFCE, INRAE, Université de Tours, PRC ; ²Developmental Ethology & Cognitive Psychology Laboratory, Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation, Institut Agro Dijon, CNRS, Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Inrae ; ³Development of Olfactory Communication & Cognition Laboratory, Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation, Institut Agro Dijon, CNRS, Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Inrae ; 4UEPAO, INRAE F-37380

Aim : to determine whether horses can discriminate between human odours of fear and joy

## STEP 1

15 people watched
a comedy or a horror movie

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

We collected their
sweat odours

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

## STEP 2

30 horses were exposed to their sweat odours in a
Habituation / Discrimination test

Hypothesis: during the discrimination test, horses will sniff the new odour (B) more than the repeated one (A)

Habituation

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

Discrimination

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

## RESULTS

Horses sniffed the new odour more than the
repeated odour

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Horses showed a significant left-nostril bias
when sniffing joy but not when sniffing fear

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

## CONCLUSION

Horses are able to discriminate
between the human odours produced
in contexts of fear and joy.

This asymmetric nostril use implies
differences in the emotional processing of
the two odours by horses.