New research from France tested the ability of horses to recognize photos of their keepers and found that horses can form deep and long-lasting connections with their human keepers.

Léa Lansade of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment, and the study lead author, said that horses were able to identify correctly - 75% of the time - their keepers when they were presented with a photo of them and a random human.

The animals were presented two screens with pictures of two humans. Initially, they were shown random humans, but over time, one of the monitors started showing photos of their current or former keepers.

Their findings were surprising not only because horses can develop an emotional attachment to their human companions, but also because the experiment showed that horses could understand photographs as symbolic representations.

Horses Have Advanced Facial Recognition

According to a report in Scientific American, there have been many past researches demonstrating the ability of horses to identify their keepers based on smell or sound cues. However, Lansade's study is the first to show that even two-dimensional images can also have significance to horses.

The team said that these results show that horses have advanced face-recognition abilities. Just like humans, horses can differentiate between an image of a familiar and unfamiliar person even when the faces did not belong to their own kind.

The team set up two computer screens to show a random selection of human faces that the horses have never met. In order to help the horses get familiarized with how the equipment works, they are given treats whenever they touch the screen with their noses.

The researchers started to integrate photos of the current handlers of the horses into the selection throughout the 32 sessions with 11 horses. They also randomize the distribution of treats to avoid any potential learning effects. There will be times when they will be rewarded for nudging the familiar photo, and there are also times when they would not get any reward.

But regardless of the treat, the horses would still select the photo of their human handler more than 75% of the time, said the researchers.

Horses Have the Ability to Form Long-term Attachments

The second phase of the study involves showing the horses their former keepers who they have not seen or worked with for more than six months already.

Just like the first phase, the horses would still select the photos of their former human keepers 75% of the time. The results suggest that horses have the ability to form long-term attachments.

Moreover, the researchers assigned a control group of horses who had no previous encounter or experience with any of the specific human handlers, using the same photos presented to the experimental group. They found out that the selection was much closer to random chance.

The results of the study are surprising, and the team recommends future research to investigate further whether the horses will display a similar long-term memory response to humans in which they have had negative experiences with in the past.