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PhD Thesis Subject : A cognitive approach of the human-animal relationship in the context of animal welfare

Human have lived closely with domestic animals for thousands of years, 6000 in the case of horses. Did this proximity lead to a good understanding of emotions and intentions between us? Recent studies on horses have bewildered the scientific community by showing that they have unexpected abilities to read our behaviours and emotions. This opened promising avenues that we wish to explore further with this PhD.

Through a series of experiments, we propose to understand better how horses recognise our emotions based on our facial expressions, our odours or our voice, and what mental representation it has of them. Several studies have showed forms of emotional contagion from humans to horses and we would like to determine if this emotional contagion is limited to negative emotions like fear, or if it can extend to more positive emotions.

This contributes to an animal welfare issue: understanding animals’ sensitivity and cognitive abilities underlies the evolution of measures that protect animals. For horses in particular, this contributes to developing a more ethical and less controversial use of the animals in multiple activites (horse riding, skidding, people transportation, animal mediation…).

Contact:

Plotine Jardat

Mail: plotine.jardat@inrae.fr