This knowledge could be useful to both horse owners and veterinarians, allowing them to better interpret the animal’s behaviour and thus respond more effectively to its needs. ![]() Whinnies produced during negative emotions are longer and the higher fundamental frequency is higher. Positive emotions can be recognised by the fact that the horse emits whinnies of shorter duration and in which the higher fundamental frequency is lower, and it lowers its head. The valence – that is, whether the emotion is positive or negative – is expressed most strongly through the characteristics of the duration of the whinny, the higher fundamental frequency and the position of the head. It moves more and produces whinnies in which the lower of the two fundamental frequencies is higher, regardless of whether the emotion is positive or negative. Specifically, the more aroused the horse is, the more its heart rate and breathing increase. Their findings showed that the intensity of emotions was best indicated by the heart and respiratory rates, the horses’ movements, the characteristics of the lower of the two fundamental frequencies of the whinny and the amplitude of higher frequencies. They used cameras and microphones to record the behaviour and vocalisations of the horses and also measured the animals’ physiological responses, such as heart rate, breathing and skin temperature. The horses were exposed to various positive and negative situations, involved around separation or reunion with their equine companions. This allowed the researchers to study an individual horse’s reaction when members of the group were removed and then later returned. The researchers suspect it is due to an asynchronous vibration pattern of the vocal cords.īriefer, who is in the Ethology and Animal Welfare Unit at ETH Zurich’s Institute of Agricultural Sciences, and her colleagues set about testing 20 privately owned horses of various breeds and age, housed in five different farms, in groups of three to five. It is not yet known how horses simultaneously produce such complex sounds. Ĭlick to hear an audio sample of two horses that express, successively, negative and positive emotions through their whinnies. “Such vocalisations with two fundamental frequencies are rare among mammals, in contrast, for example, to songbirds,” she says. Attempts to link an aspect of a whinny with a particular behavior is still in a formative stage, complicated by the fact that a horse’s behavior is usually based primarily on visual rather than acoustic inputs.The two frequencies have not been described in any previous study on horse vocalisations until now, according to the researchers, despite the fact that listeners with normal hearing can easily perceive both fundamental frequencies if they are aware of it, according to Briefer. In the samples analyzed, each domain seems to vary independently both in strength and duration. Acoustic analysis of a whinny shows three distinct domains: the initial frequency ramp‐up running from 1 to 2 kilohertz in roughly 1 second, matched by a similar response in the second and third harmonics secondly, this is followed by a nasal tremolo of a longer duration with generally a slight downslope in frequency (this is perhaps the stage most associated with the human perception of a whinny) and, lastly, a guttural tremolo, essentially the same sound as a nicker. ![]() A whinny is a horse’s primary means of long range vocal communication the bandwidth and variability offer the possibility of expression, at least at a primitive level. ![]() Of the roughly nine different vocalizations of a horse, the whinny appears to be the most interesting.
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