ArticleScientific reports2022
Pet-directed speech improves horses' attention toward humans.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review on the effect of individual characteristics and management practices on equine cognition.Animal cognition · 2025Pooled it
- Social Context Matters for Turn-Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children.Cognitive science · 2025Article
- Emotional contagion of fear and joy from humans to horses using a combination of facial and vocal cues.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Horses discriminate between human facial and vocal expressions of sadness and joy.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Dog brains are sensitive to infant- and dog-directed prosody.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Horses form cross-modal representations of adults and children.Animal cognition · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In a recent experiment, we showed that horses are sensitive to pet-directed speech (PDS), a kind of speech used to talk to companion animals that is characterized by high pitch and wide pitch variations. When talked to in PDS rather than adult-directed speech (ADS), horses reacted more favorably during grooming and in a pointing task. However, the mechanism behind their response remains unclear: does PDS draw horses' attention and arouse them, or does it make their emotional state more positive? In this study, we used an innovative paradigm in which female horses watched videos of humans speaking in PDS or ADS to better understand this phenomenon. Horses reacted differently to the videos of PDS and ADS: they were significantly more attentive and their heart rates increased significantly more during PDS than during ADS. We found no difference in the expressions of negative or positive emotional states during PDS and ADS videos. Thus, we confirm that horses' perception of humans can be studied by means of video projections, and we conclude that PDS attracts attention and has an arousing effect in horses, with consequences on the use of PDS in daily interactions with them.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.