Thank you for posting yet another interesting and provocative article. I believe Jane Goodall was among the first to establish that chimps used tools in a creative and imaginative way, and I suspect it has yet to be established that crows do any more than exhibit either instinctual behaviour, or fairly rigid learned behaviour.
Yesterday I watched Robin (my horse) trying to open a gate by hooking the rope off the post. It was one of those very deep moments when I sensed there was something going on in his mind, but I doubt if he was creatively trying to perfect his technique - it's more likely that he was modifying some instinctual behaviour which he already has - in this case, head-tossing.
My limited observations suggest that horses use abrupt up and down movements of their head whilst feeding (to clean their food of debris from the ground). This movement is then transferred to other situations, for example it becomes a social signal which communicates assertiveness. When faced with a situation in which a rope has to be removed from a gate, the horse might naturally use this pre-existing behaviour. The behaviour might well be successful in achieving what he wants, so it could be said that the horse has creatively learned how to open a gate. However, it could also be said that he has a certain set of inherited behaviours which he might apply in any situation - occasionally they will work, sometimes they won't. When they work, they appear to be the action of an intelligent animal.
But I imagine that a chimp could be much more creative in the solution of this kind of problem (as could a human). So they might use completely original behaviour, or combinations of existing behaviours to achieve their goal.
This is a fascinating field of study, one which I would love to know more about. The one conclusion I am tempted to make is that 'intelligence' is a very human-centred concept, and doesn't do much to explain or describe the rich spectrum of behaviour shown by a 'low intelligence' animal such as a horse. I also suspect (and perhaps fear) that much human behaviour could be shown to be little more than instinctual, but filtered through complex human social relationships.
It would be interesting to know whether Tony Blair (for example) was really making intelligent choices about political issues or whether his behaviour was dictated by his instinctual drives.
I have to disagree with your inference that a horse is a less intelligent animal than a human. I come to this conclusion for many reasons but the main being my horse (Crunchie) who is by far one of the most intelligent horses I have ever known and who often outwits me with his anticks (I'm sure that anyone who has met him would agree). I see the main difference between the horse and humans is that horses (as we understand) do use spoken language and so cannot share their thoughts with others in the way that humans can.
I argue that many horses do not show, what we humans would consider intelligence or problem solving behaviour simlply because they have never been allowed to. From being with Crunchie from him being about 6 months old, I have never wanted my horse to be a 'robot' and so have not supressed any of the inquisitiveness that he naturally shows. The behaviours that sometimes do lead to something rewarding do tend to stay - but wouldn't you agree that the same goes for humans - it seems very unintelligent to keep doing something that doesn't have any sort of reward or benefit, whether it be food or simply relief of bordom.
Horses are trying to work out what we are trying to communicate to them every single day. They often get mixed signals and abuse for not finding the correct answers, yet they still often work their hearts out for us - to me this makes the horse much more intelligent than most human beings.
Unfortuanately horse do not have the adaption of fingers like we do and so any manourvers to try and solve a problem often involve the lips and head - after all this is the main tool that horses use on a day to day basis - if they had fingers like us, and even spoken language, I am sure that we would have to be more in favour of granting horses 'intelligence' and I'm sure I would not need to come on here defending my horses intelligence and that of other animals - they would be doing it themselves
There can surely be no doubt that a horse is less 'intelligent' than a human, but my point was "who cares?".
Intelligence is simply what is measured by an intelligence test, and we all know there are some people who are not very bright in the conventional sense, but because of their personal qualities, they may be far more able to run a company, or solve a problem or climb a mountain or enrich a life, than would a much brighter person.
The main point I was making is that there is a spectrum of behaviour in horses (and all other animals), which is as worthy of respect as that of any primate. Has anyone read the real story of 'Clever Hans'? The actual facts are even more remarkable than the apocryphal version which gets passed around. How could any animal be so observant as to detect the lifting of an eyebrow or the slightest change of body inclination?
Perhaps humans could learn to recognise and value the qualities of other people or other species, instead of constantly comparing them to our own - we might then have a more tolerant society.
Was it Diane who told the workshop group about the way she used to watch ants in fascination? Even ants have the power to enrich our lives!
Could I just ask you what you define as 'intelligence'? It seems silly to possibly be arguing at cross purposes
I don't think that level of intelligence should actually be an issue, I believe that everything should be treated as we would like to be treated ourselves. I am a firm believer that horses are extremely intelligent beings and should be granted with the intelligence they so clearly have.
As for intelligence tests, I believe they are biased towards the person, culture and beliefs of the person who puts them together. How many people have gone to interviews and 'learnt' how to do the tests (I for one have done that) - does that make me more intelligent than the person who wasn't lucky enough to find the 'how too books', can't read or as a horse doesn't posses written language - in my eyes it doesn't.
Hi Peter,
I am a little confused at what you mean about animals being observant enough to detect the lifting of an eyebrow. Are you saying that they are not?
Many thanks. J.
Marie, suppose you showed me 5 pictures of objects and asked me to pick the odd one out. I might spend an hour looking at them and still not figure out which is the odd one out. But someone else (of higher intelligence) might spot the characteristics which define the odd one out in three seconds. No matter how many books I read, it's unlikely that my performance would ever equal hers, because she is more intelligent than I am. However, even though I may be intellectually challenged compared with some people, I would still be a million times better than the average horse, and at least twice as good as Crunchie.
However, if the test was one of understanding body language (which would not be a test of intelligence) then I would have to think very quickly to beat the average horse. And Crunchie would probably knock spots off me.
Julie - I'm saying that they ARE able to detect the lifting of an eyebrow, and that this is an ability that deserves, at the very least, our admiration. Not only can they detect the lifting of an eyebrow, they can detect the things you do BEFORE you are about to lift your eyebrow. At eyebrow-lifting time they have already predicted what you're about to do, and are looking for the meaning behind it.
>>Marie, suppose you showed me 5 pictures of objects and asked me to pick the odd one out. I might spend an hour looking at them and still not figure out which is the odd one out. But someone else (of higher intelligence) might spot the characteristics which define the odd one out in three seconds.
Do you not think that maybe (amongst many other factors) experience and training and even confidence may come into this somewhere? I was never any good at problem solving when I was younger but I am much better now becasue I have practiced and trained my brain to work in different ways, also the more 'problems' you manage to solve, the greater your confidence at solving the problem and the better idea you have at what angles to look at. I agree that some people are more natural at solving problems, just as other people are naturally more artistic than others, but I don't rate these people as more intelligent than people who can't solve a problems or are less artistic.....
In my belief intelligence is very subjective - I was always told that I was stupid and shy becasue I didn't talk very much, people failed to see that maybe (very intelligently in my eyes)the reason I didn't talk very much and seemed shy was becasue I was being bullied and that was my only way of coping with the situation - this may seem stupid to some, but trust me, it seemed extremely intelligent to me! What I am trying to say is just because something doesn't seem too intelligent to you, doesn't mean it isn't intelligent to the animal doing it - we need to be looking at the bigger picture really.
>>No matter how many books I read, it's unlikely that my performance would ever equal hers, because she is more intelligent than I am.
Maybe you are already setting yourself up to fail by believing you can never be as intelligent as her...
>>However, even though I may be intellectually challenged compared with some people, I would still be a million times better than the average horse, and at least twice as good as Crunchie.
You are right and I would suggest that you would be 100% better than crunchie at solving a written problem simply becasue he can't read, but that doesn't make him any less intelligent than you I'm afraid.
>>However, if the test was one of understanding body language (which would not be a test of intelligence) then I would have to think very quickly to beat the average horse. And Crunchie would probably knock spots off me.
You are probably right again, it is a well known fact that most humans miss the messages most body language convey, but again I don't think this really makes crunchie any more intelligent than you, just that he has more experience of reading body language because it is his main mode of communication, and yours is likely speach.
I think the real problem in the horse world is that people try to compare, very different animals to each other (eg horse and human), instead of looking at each individual animal. I find it extremely naive of humans to believe that they are the more intelligent species, in many respects I would argue that we are the dumbest species on earth - what other species would threaten to wipe themselves out for no other reason than winning and self glory - its a mad world!
I am a believer in the growth of any animal to their full potetial - to label something on a scale of intelligence I find stunts growth. I find rating animals by levels of intelligence a negative way of looking at the world..
Marie - I think you're using the word intelligence to mean something else. But I hesitate to criticise, because if we all used the word in the way that you are meaning it, maybe the world would be a better place...
Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to see if I can spot any left-handed crows.
I welcome criticism with open arms, what a brilliant way to stimulate the mind.
I am obviously not communicating my point very well. Intelligence IMHO is a human produced term and phenomenon used to try and set us apart from the ‘animal’ kingdom and used within our society as a means of making some people more worthy than others. When Jane Goodall found the chimps where using tools the finding was criticised and dismissed for a long time – why? Because it threatened human status – we could no longer say that we where the only tool using animals and tool use was at the time one of the main reason that humans where said to be ‘more’ intelligent than other animals. When Chimps where taught American sign language, their ability to use the language was dampened because they where unable to put a grammatical sentence together, yet during the tests there where up to 100 different trainers trying to teach the chimps – considering the lack of consistency that must have been occurring, I think the very fact that they learnt anything was a fantastic achievement.
Intelligence, as with many other psychological theories, is an attempt to bring the functioning of the human mind and that of animals down to a simplified, isolated theory. The mind and functioning of any living thing, in my opinion is much deeper than that. If we accept that we are all unique, how can we be measured on a scale of intelligence? Surely the notches on the scale would have to equal the number of living things on Earth and then I ask what is the point?
I would go as far as to say that I do not believe intelligence should ever be used as a scale to set people apart from animals and people apart from other people, it is subjective and not really a reliable scale to gauge people on.
What a fantastic use of a day, did you know that horses tend to favour one side to the other, just like us humans? Let me know if you find similar results in crows
Mx
This message has been edited by CrunchieBoy on Apr 5, 2004 9:58 AM
Wow - not often we get such a long thread appearing over a weekend!
April 5 2004, 10:25 AM
Really interesting to see your comments - intelligence is so hard to define. And as for being given the opportunity to compare Crunchie with Tony Blair - all I can say politely is that Crunchie would get my vote every time....(and I can't wait to see his policies...)
The problem I have with "intelligence tests" of any form is that they are always designed with a human brain. All the tests they have done on horses (lots are summarised in Budiansky's The Nature of Horses) seem pretty pointless from a horse's point of view. But the people trying to measure intelligence seem to miss the fact that the horse has evolved for 60 million years, often living into their 30s, maintaining good health, good feet etc. Then we come along and expect them to work out that we want them to jump over things, do piaffes for no apparent reason, that they're not allowed to spook at potentially life-threatening events and have to put up with all our inconsistencies - and they get punished if they do any of this wrongly. But they cope with it, albeit often by "shutting down" and appearing "stupid".
And since domestication they have developed vices, behavioural problems, digestion problems, life-threatening laminitis, navicular, COPD, often die before the age of 20 - and we are supposed to be the intelligent ones....
I was on the physiology and anatomy module this weekend for my shiatsu course. While it was incredibly helpful and informative, at one point the tutor described the horse's digestive system as incredibly badly designed. Ummm, no, surely it is incredibly well designed and that we just impose unbelievably bad living conditions on the horse, given the type of digestive system the horse has.
I would say that when left to their own devices horses are damn good at being horses so that seems intelligent to me. Yet I'm not sure I can say the same about humans. We seem to let greed and ego get in the way of our intelligence so maybe you could say we are less intelligent, less good at being humans than horses are at being horses.
I agree that a lot of what we call intelligence could just be a manifestation of Thorndyke, ie they do what benefits them. But (as I think Marie said above) I think that is the case with us too. We are just all motivated by different things. All the reinforcement in the world is not going to enable me to draw anything competantly or with enthusiasm, but music is something I find entirely self-motivating and so that's what I prefer to do. Yet I don't think an inability to draw makes me stupid, it is just perhaps not the best indicator of my intelligence (or lack of!).
And just an aside regarding "handedness" in horses - the most noticeable example of one-sidedness in Jak is when we are trotting and he will often favour one diagonal. This is considered fairly normal in horses but I've found that it is an indication that he needs his feet trimmed. His trotting diagonals will then instantly feel even again, even though the trim consists of just a few rasp strokes. We never had this luxury when he was shod and uneven all the time. So although I agree that horses will show "handedness" I wonder how many more examples are down to the humans.... Certainly lots of muscle inbalances would be
Catherine
This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Apr 5, 2004 11:07 AM This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Apr 5, 2004 10:28 AM
I don't think a horse is very brigh at being a human but then we are no good at being a horse. the main problem with inteligence is that we don't take animal inteligence tests. how many of us could rember were a spring was that we saw as a baby twenty years ago yet a horse could.
the problem with horses is most people aren't interested in a thinking horse they want a robot with hooves. so for many hundreds of years training techniques have encouraged horses to shut down and stop thinking. I recently read on the equine research foundations website that mice kept in unstimulating enviroments (small bare cages without other mice) actualy lose brain cells and get less inteligent. so a barren enviroment can result in a mouse that comes out 'stupider' than when he gos into it. of course a lot of horse live in a very barren enviroment (stables) so that could contribute to lack of inteligence in equines.
also -re is not that great as it removes creativity thus reduceing the drive to learn and the enthusiasm needed to demonstrate inteligence.
CatherineB - I'd never thought of the digestive system of the horse in that way before. I still think the inability to be sick is a flaw though - or did the system evolve purposely to LOSE the vomiting ability?
Hmm, that's an interesting one. I'm not sure off the top of my head whether horses lost the ability to be sick because they didn't need it or because maybe it was actually counterproductive in some way (eg does the mechanism needed to enable vomiting also slow down the digestive process, which is undesirable in a flight animal??). Need to check my notes on this one!
But I can see why they might have evolved with no need to be sick. Horses evolved to live off poor quality grazing via trickle-feeding, while the ruminants needed the lush pasture. Presumably horses couldn't afford to be sick and lose what little nutrition they were getting. Whereas some animals will naturally seek out emetics (eg dogs eating grass) in order to get rid of eg toxins, others (including horses, I understand) will eat clay which adsorbs them or eat other plants which provide an "antidote" - that way they wouldn't need to be sick to get rid of toxins. I guess it depends what would have been naturally available
Afraid I'm guessing here but it seems vaguely plausible.... Anybody know??
Catherine
This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Apr 6, 2004 9:44 AM This message has been edited by Brocksopp on Apr 6, 2004 9:43 AM
...maybe they lost the ability to be sick due to the sheer length that the vomit would have to travel. It's reasonable to assume (well to me anyhoo!) that the disadvantage, namely the possiblity of the vomit blocking the oesophogus outweighs the advantage of removing the unpleasant/disagreable food. The former can easily result in death.
The original post reminds me of one of the lectures at the EBF symposium last year - Feeding side preference. It wasn't a rounded study IMO, but the thought was there. When we had budgies years ago each one had a preferred wall light when allowed to fly in the living room! Didn't give it much thought though.
I agree that 'intelligence' is a very human-centred concept so I prefer to call this ‘area’ brainpower. Regarding which species has or uses the most brainpower, it is indeed fascinating to consider or study genetics, instincts, motivation, hard wiring etc. However, in attempting to measure the ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ levels of brainpower between different species, I make a very unscientific observation.
Given the opportunity and without exception (in my experience) all horses, donkeys and mules do use and maximise their brainpower. Many humans do not. This common human choice leads me to believe that equines (as indeed every other species) within their own capacity are ahead in the brain power stakes.
We many be able to say we are ‘intelligent’ but animals prove they are, over and over again.
Since I last posted I have been thinking a lot about this thread and the way in which it has evolved, I have read and re-read it and cringe in despair of what I wrote and my reaction to the suggestion that horses have ‘low intelligence’ in comparison to humans. It’s not so much what I wrote but how I wrote it – indeed I still stand by my beliefs but I realise that in my endeavour to stick up for what I believe in, I may have actually shut down the most fantastic thing about it – communication.
So I think I will re-wind the thread a bit and say that I too think this is a fascinating subject that I am truly passionate about, but am far from an expert.
Since this thread appeared, I have looked in numerous psychology, behaviour, general horse books and such like and found very little in the realms of a consistently strong definition of what ‘intelligence’ is. Given that the ‘experts’ are pretty unsure as to what it is in human terms, let alone in animal terms and god forbid a comparison between the two, it seems no wonder that we seem to end up arguing at cross purposes
In response to the above post, I like Emma’s analogy of brainpower a lot because it allows for the idea that we can use more of our brain if we want to– and I guess in essence become more ‘intelligent’. One thing that niggles at me about the talk I hear of ‘Intelligence’ is that it is a fixed thing, you either have a high IQ or not, and there isn’t much you can do about it – this is something I completely disagree with.
I also like the use of brainpower to describe intelligence because it gives it some consistency and it would make it more logical to measure percentage brain use as a level of 'intelligence' at that moment in time for a particular animal - it might then become more feasible to compare two different animals, whether the same species or different, but in my opionion, only at that moment of time.
It would be interesting to find an animal who is utilising his/her brain to the max, but I’m not sure that an animal could ever exist – theoretically would our brains not continue to increase in size as more and more cells where produced and linked (obviously the size of the brain would have to fit into the skull so there would be a physiological restraint)?
Emma, when you say ‘all horses, donkeys and mules do use and maximise their brainpower’ do you mean that they do use all their brainpower and therefore get to a point where they cannot have anymore ‘intelligence’ because they don’t have the brain power available? I’m not sure, but could this mean that once an animal gets to this point they are physically unable to learn any more? – Are intelligence and ability to learn linked in this way?
Thanks Marie for coming back however, I am afraid my answer will not be worthy of such ‘academic’ questions :-)Perhaps some others on this forum would do a better job.
Firstly I appoligise for not being clear.
In saying equines maximise their brain power I was refering to their ability to constantly keep learning, adapting and succeeding. I guess I should have said maximising their brainpower potential. I did not mean equines constantly work at their intelectual maximum meaning there is no where left to go. If this were the case we would not be witnessing the growing repertoire in the domestic equine.
As you said, “The ‘experts’ are pretty unsure as to what intelligence is in human terms, let alone in animal terms”. Therefore, I shall not even begin to pretend I can answer your questions beyond my own observations and thinking which is a constant work in progress.
I think at this point I should also mention that as much as I appreciate those that seek and enjoy the quantifiable and I am no stranger to using and promoting the toils of an academic mind to secure a balance of understanding of equine behaviour. I absolutely revel in working and learning in areas that yet remain indefinable. As long as something is still in a theoretical, hypothetical stage for me there remains the adventure of discovery, learning and limitless opportunities. I think the fact we do not have all the answers keeps wonderment in our lives. The fact horses ‘know’ more about being horses than we will ever know grounds us with humility.
I believe equine success is pure. They succeed with out speech, without books, without universities, without advice. This alone in my opinion promotes the fact equines have ‘intelligence’. However, I am aware that my passion for these magnificent animals can cause me to be biased especially with out the anchors of provable facts. So by removing my emotions and looking at equine ‘intelligence‘ from pure observation and experience, the following is an example of my thinking.
Equines are flight animals. Genetically and instinctually designed to run away. Their evolutionary survival mechanism did not equip them to way up the pros and cons of potential danger and make choices based on their conclusions. Subsequently flight animals are not natural problem solvers. However, domestication has shown how mentally adaptable and capable this species is at learning. Not only can they learn completely unnatural tasks such as being ridden by a predator, they have the sense to question our own supposedly superior judgement and knowledge (yes ‘bad’ behaviour for me can be as intelligent as good behaviour) but they have also acquired the mental and physical capacity and control to be able to ‘go against’ 65 million years of survival instinct.
Even if we take the credit and extol the virtues of our ability to retrain, remove etc (positively or negatively) flight behaviour, we must not forget, regardless of how good we are, we would achieve nothing if equines did not have the brainpower to adapt, learn what we want, retain the information and translate the knowledge into every situation we put them in. Being able to train horses is not about the ability of the human to teach but the ability of the horse to learn! From being automatic flight animals equines have learnt to problem solve and as humans are their biggest problem that is no mean feat!
We do not know the limits to our brainpower, for example before we invented the telephone we did not know we could invent it. I do not know how we discover the limits to equine brainpower but I do know this, it is a long way off when even after 6000 years of domestication we struggle to recognise and appreciate what they have already achieved.
Much as I admire and respect Emma's work with horses, (and her various articles) and much as I value the contribution of Marie and of Meera and others, I must bring you back to the crux of the matter, namely that when people become preoccupied with showing that horses are 'intelligent' and in bending the definition of 'intelligence' so that it favours horses, then this is simply another form of anthropomorphism. I think Budianski wrote about this phenomenon.
In the orginal article posted by Catherine, one of the captions was "crows are more competent tool-users than chimps" and the point of my first post was to say that they are very clearly not more competent tool users than chimps (I'm sure Budianski would argue that the crow's tool use is likely to be 'hard-wired'). But my point was that this level of journalism (which is only fractionally higher that that of the Sun newspaper) constantly seeks to draw comparisons between people, or in this case, chimps, and lower animals with the object of putting on a pedestal the qualities in question (in this case, tool-use). It often happens with 'intelligence'. Whenever people want to give respect to an animal, or in some way favour it, they usually say that it's 'intelligent'. As though this reflection of a human quality in an animal somehow makes the animal 'worthy'.
This then leads to people looking for human qualities in animals, in order to promote the animal to a higher level in our estimation. So people imbue animals with 'kindness' or 'love' or 'forgiveness', and the animals turns out to be just another person, but with four legs.
My point is that you don't have to do this. In fact doing it is derogatory towards animals. They have their own minds and behaviours and motivations. If you think animals are worthy of respect, love, kindness or whatever, then you must take a moral position, which applies to all animals, not just a few who happen to be furry and have some qualities similar to humans.
My point is that animals are worthy of our respect even if they are not 'intelligent', even if they are slimy, even if they don't have any human qualities and even if they would only ever want to kill us. If my horse took an IQ test he would probably score about 2. My dog might score 6. A severly retarded human might score 20. This shouldn't lessen our respect for horses or dogs or retarded humans. Not only are they all worthy of respect, love, attention, but they have a RIGHT to be respected, and humans have a DUTY to respect them, without having to make them into honorary people in order to justify it.
I'm not, of course, saying we shouldn't study tool-use amongst crows - it's the way this is then used to form value judgements about animals that I object to.
Whichever way we try and define intelligence, we invariably end up anthropomorphising when we try to apply it to animals. If intelligence is measured on an *IQ scale*, isn't that anthropomorphising? Yet if intelligence is measured per species, this is distortion of the rule to fit any animal and is considered anthropomorphism by the bending!
Maybe having a smaller brain size means that usage has to be maximised, hence definition of intelligence as percentage brain volume used - but isn't this more of a necessity than a useful measurement as such? As we have such a huge cortex, we can afford to not use quite so much brain volume. Brain usage takes up a surprisingly large amount of carbohydrate so this leads onto a number of possibilities as to the amount of "thinking" that actually goes on.
Something that I found interesting quite a while ago (and still do now) is that provision of an environment which takes away the need for "normal" behaviour (as such) in chimps (i.e. the provision of adequate food/water/shelter/protection etc) increases production of creative behaviours such as "art", to the point where a chimp can become absorbed in building something (for instance) and even when food is placed in his environment, he chooses to carry on with his "project". I guess the point I'm trying (badly) to make is that although brain usage may be maximised in particular animals, it doesn't mean that the ability or the learning stops there. It's just that their heads are full of useful stuff and ours aren't!!!!
Great thread, would love to post reams but am really busy. Just a random thing though...I was talking to the manatee keepers in a florida dolphinarium and they say that manatees are right or left flippered. And that when they are injured by motorboats on the flipper they use the most they become really stuck and need to be rescued so that they can learn to switch handed-ness in the safety of a rehabilitation center. However, I have no scientific proof of that, just hearsay.
Also, there is an excellent paper in a book of papers I have that is all about primates and humans and comparing intelligence and one particular paper is really interesting. It discusses the idea that the ability of deception separates less intelligent animals from more intelligent animals and includes some lovely descriptions of symbol- and sign-language-using chimps using deception in amazing (and often very amusing) ways. I'll photocopy the paper and send it to anyone who is interested...
Hope you don't mind me bringing up such an old thread but there is now a video released to go with this research. Afraid I haven't been able to watch it as the format isn't compatible with my computer but hope someone can enjoy it!
Just read this thread again.
Peter, do you have a copy of Waring (Horse behaviour boook, new edition came out in 2003 or 2004 I think). The rope/gate behaviour can be understood a bit more by reading about latent learning and insight learning, which is covered pretty nicely in Waring..
