연구가들은 점점 사람과 말의 유대관계에 관심을 갖고 있다. 많은 마주들은 최근 연구를 읽고, "과학자들이 얘기 안해도 알아"라고 하겠지만 이런 관계에 과학적 원리를 적용하는 것은 중요하다.
인간들은 의인화하는 경향이 있다 - 동물들의 행동이나 반등에 인간동기를 부여하는 것이다. 이것은 말이 어떤 동기로 사람과의 유대를 형성하는 것이 무엇인지 규명하는데 도움이 되지 않는다. 그렇다면 현대과학은 말-인간과의 관계에 대해 무엇을 말하고 있는가?
우리말로 적절히 옮기기가 어려워 이후 중요한 것만 군데군데 번역....
They identified three central themes of what they called co-being – embodied moments of mutuality and engagement. It is, they say, a kind of anthropo-zoo-genetic practice, where species domesticate each other through being together.
Norwegian researcher Anita Maurstad, a professor in the Department of Cultural Sciences in Tromsø University Museum, explains that, in essence, both the horse and the human become attuned to each other’s physical and mental ways, thus developing the state of co-being. 요점을 말하자면, 말과 사람은 서로 신체적, 정신적으로 맞춰지고 그래서 둘이 함께 존재하는 것을 발달시키게 된다는 것이다.
Riders, she said, got to know their horses’ personalities through ongoing processes of deep engagement. Owners came to identify the different personalities, both generally and individually.
Maurstad and her research colleagues from the University of South Dakota’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology found that riders did not simply see their horses as passive reflections of themselves. The relationship was much more complex.
Horses, she notes, lead their lives partly with humans, partly with other horses. Horses appeared to learn to relate to people in ways that provide them with good quality of life.
The findings will strike a chord with many owners, who cherish their relationships with horses.
But not all relationships will necessarily progress smoothly. Not all relationships are plain sailing.
Others researchers have found that horses can buckle under exactly the same kinds of stresses that affect humans: learning difficult new tasks, boring day-to-day routines, poor relationships, negative reinforcement, insufficient rewards, and troublesome bosses (trainers).
They can lead to frustration and neuroses, behavioral scientists suggest.
Professor Martine Hausberger and her fellow researchers in France note that horses, like people, are often asked to work on a daily basis, involving interpersonal interactions not only with other working horses but also with a “boss” – the human who manages or rides the animal. 말들은 사람처럼 스트레스에 무너지기도 한다; 어려운 새 일, 매일 지겨운 같은 일, 좋지 않은 관계, 부정적인 강화훈련, 불충분한 보상, 힘든 보스(트레이너) 등등.
“Work sessions are based on training, using more often negative reinforcement or punishment than positive reinforcement,” they noted.
Conflicts and tensions can easily arise.
Hausberger, who directs the Department of Ethology at the University of Rennes 1 in France, suggests negative experiences linked to training could lead to chronic states where horses “switch off”, becoming unresponsive and apathetic – states described in humans in cases of work-related burnout. 훈련과 연계된 부정직인 경험은 만성적으로 스위치가 꺼져있는 상태로 만드는데 반응이 없고 무덤덤한 것이며 이것은 일로 번아웃된 사람과 비교할 수 있다. 말이 보이는 비정상적이고 반복적인 행동은 힘든 스트레스가 되는 상황에서 견디는 한 방법으로 생각이 된다.
Abnormal repetitive behaviors in horses are thought to be a way for animals to cope with an unfavorable stress-inducing environment.
So what would seem to be areas of greatest stress?
An Austrian study confirms that starting a horse under saddle causes stress, which rises markedly during the first time a rider gets on the horse. 처음 안장을 하고 기승자가 타는 것이 가장 큰 스트레스가 된다.
Researcher Alice Schmidt and others at the University of Veterinary Medicine, in Vienna, measured stress by examining the horses’ heartbeats and the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their saliva.
Schmidt used three-year-old horses at the start of their training. Not surprisingly, she found the start of training was a stressful period.
Interestingly, when the horse and rider walked or trotted forward, the level of stress decreased somewhat. 흥미롭게도 말과 기승자가 걷거나 속보를 하며 갈 때는 스트레스가 조금 낮아지는데 이것은 말이 사람이 타는 것에 대해 빨리 적응하고 -사람처럼- 운동이 스트레스를 해소하는데 도움이 되는 듯 하다.
“It seems as though the horse adapts rapidly to the idea of being ridden and that – as is the case for humans – exercise may help relieve stress,” she says.
Fellow researcher Jörg Aurich cautions that a lack of care or an incorrect regime in early training could cause long-term damage to the relationship between a horse and its rider. It could prevent a sport horse reaching its full potential, as well as causing the animal unnecessary anxiety. 처음 훈련할 때 관리부족이나 바르지 않은 훈련을 받으면 말과 기승자 사이에 장기간적인 손상이 생길 수 있다.
Schmidt has some reassuring words for trainers and riders concerned about stress levels in training.
“The stress caused by being ridden for the first time is nowhere near as much as that caused by being transported by road. And if you are gentle and careful when you start to train a young horse, it will soon get used to you.” 하지만 첫기승보다 더 심한 것은 말차로 이동을 하는 것인데 조심스럽고 부드럽게 하면 곧 적응을 한다고 한다.
In France, researchers extended stress research to the role of temperament in training, in an experiment involving exposure to different levels of stress before a learning task.
Each animal was assessed beforehand for temperament based on fearfulness, group sociability, reactivity to humans, level of locomotor activity, and sensitivity to touch.
The study, led by Mathilde Valenchon and published in the open-access journal, PLoS onE, found that temperament influenced learning performance, but only when the learning or re-learning performances were affected by stress, suggesting that temperament had little influence on learning ability provided lessons occurred in a stress-free environment.
스트레스가 없는 환경에서는 말의 성격이 레슨을 배우는 능력에 영향을 거의 끼치지 않지만 스트레스가 있을 때는 성격이 배우는 일에 영향을 끼친다고 한다.
They found that while direct exposure to a stressor tended to increase learning performance, the state of stress induced by the memory of a stressor during efforts to re-learn or reinforce the task impaired performance.
Valenchon, in another study, explored the effects of stressful situations on the working memory of horses, testing the ability of 30 Welsh pony mares to remember in which of two buckets they would find a carrot.
A researcher dropped a carrot in one of the buckets in sight of the mares. Each horse was made to wait between zero and 20 seconds before being allowed to the bucket to retrieve the carrot.
In a calm setting, the horses were found to have an average working memory of 16 seconds. 스트레스 없는 조건에서 말들의 working memory는 훨씬 더 퍼포먼스가 좋았다. 종목마다 스트레스 레벨이 다른데 드레사지/마장마술은 점핑이나 이벤팅, 볼팅보다 스트레스가 더 많다고 한다.
However, when the testing was performed under stressful conditions – involving the likes of a barking dog and a waving sheet – they performed much worse.
Researchers have also found that different disciplines induce different levels of stress in horses.
Findings from French research indicate that dressage and high-school work create higher levels of stress in horses than the likes of jumping, eventing and vaulting.
The scientists from the University of Rennes 1, in findings, published in PLoS onE, set about studying 76 French Saddlebred horses stabled at the Ecole Nationale d’Equitation in Saumur.
The researchers – Hausberger, Emmanuel Gautier, Véronique Biquand, Christophe Lunel, and Patrick Jego –monitored the horses in their stables for behaviors called stereotypies – abnormal repetitive behaviors with no useful function. These include repetitive mouth movement, head tossing or nodding, wind-sucking, cribbing and weaving. Sixty-five of the 76 horses performed some type of stereotypey.
They also found that the type of work performed by the horses each day had a significant influence on the prevalence and types of undesirable traits shown, unearthing what they said was the first evidence of potential effects of work stress on the emergence of abnormal behaviors in an animal species. 말이 일하는 종류/타입에 따라 마방에서의 (좋지 않은)행동이 달라지는데 이것은 일로 인한 스트레스가 비정상적인 행동과 연관되는 것임을 알게하였다. 볼팅이 가장 나쁜 행동이 적었으며 마장마술 같은 고도의 훈련은 가장 많은 마방내 나쁜 행동이 나타나게 했다. 그 이유는 말이 감정을 표현하지 않고 억제하며 신체적인 동작에 제한을 주는데 있다고 한다.
“It raises an important line of thought on the chronic impact of the work situation on the daily life of [horses],” the researchers said.
Vaulting horses appeared least prone to stereotypies whereas dressage/high-school horses presented the highest incidence.
The authors pondered why dressage appeared to cause the most stress.
“Dressage and high school both expect horses to restrain from expressing emotions and put a strong physical constraint on the movements,” they noted.
“Moreover, cases where orders can be conflictual are more frequent here as the restricted gaits are often obtained by refraining movement through the reins and bit while pushing forward the horse through the legs.” 발로는 추진을하면서 동시에 재갈과 고삐로 동작을 억제하며 이루어 지기 때문이라고 한다. 따라서 신체적이고 상호작용적인 스트레스가 마방에서 좋지 않은 행동을 보이는 이유라고 한다.
“Therefore both physical and interactional stress can explain the high prevalence and types of stereotypies observed in these horses.”
They noted: “Although some work stressors involved here may be specific to equine work, others are clearly shared with other species, including humans: emotion suppression, interpersonal conflict, physical demands, lack of reward and negative future expectancy that are associated with depression in humans.”어떤 스트레스는 특정한 말의 일하는 것에서 야기되지만 다른 것들은 감정억제,사람과의 마찰, 신체적으로 힘든 일, 보상부족과 사람의 우울증에 관련되는 미래에 대한 부정적인 기대와 같은 것이다. 스트레스는 어떤 훈련에서 사용되는 부정적 강화 테크닉의 본질적인 부분이다.
Stress, it would seem, is part and parcel of the negative reinforcement techniques used by some in training.
A Danish study found that while negative reinforcement in training may be beneficial in getting horses used to unfamiliar objects, the stress response had to be considered.
Janne Winther Christensen, of Aarhus University, writing in the Equine Veterinary Journal, investigated whether horses showed increased stress responses when negatively reinforced to approach novel objects, compared to horses that were allowed to voluntarily explore the objects.
She found that negative reinforcement aided habituation in young horses, there was an increased stress response during initial exposure.
“Although negatively reinforced approach appears beneficial for habituation, the procedure should be carefully managed due to increased stress responses in the horse which may constitute a safety risk,” Christensen said.
It seems almost ironic in all of this, given the potential stress potentially involved in the daily lives of horses, that those properly trained for the competition environment do not suffer from one of the curses of human performance – stage fright.
Austrian researchers pondered whether the human condition, with all its nasty manifestations such as rapid pulse, dry mouth, shaky voice, blushing and sweaty palms, manifested itself in horses in some way.
Work by Professor Christine Aurich and her team at the University of Veterinary Medicine, in Vienna, confirmed that horse riders suffered more stress when performing in front of an audience than when practising for the event. However, the horses themselves reacted identically whether or not spectators were present. 말들은 시합에서 관중이 있을 때 하는 것이나 시합준비에 하는 것에 똑같이 반응하지만 사람처럼 무대공포증이 없다. 사람과 말은 시합을 다르게 보고 반응하는 것이다.
Horses and riders thus saw the challenges of competing differently, the scientists concluded.
There are many reasons why riders might be more stressed when performing in front of an audience than when practising. As Aurich says: “They are only human, after all.”
In contrast, the horses appeared not to be affected by the presence of spectators: their reaction to the course was essentially independent of whether an audience was present.
The results implied that riders did not communicate their heightened anxiety to the animals.
The lack of transfer of emotions between rider and horse was completely unexpected.
Aurich concedes: “We started with the assumption that the rider’s stress would affect his horse but this does not seem to be the case.
“Nevertheless, we should bear in mind that we were working with experienced horses and highly skilled riders: our findings cannot be generalized to inexperienced riders, who might be less able to prevent their horses from being stressed by the situation.”
So, if relations with your equine friend are cordial, could you perhaps take it to the next level? Why not over a nice meal?
For horses, friendship is one thing, food is another.
French and Polish researchers found that the best way to a horse’s heart is through food.
They looked at whether horses were motivated more by a tasty morsel or a good, old-fashioned scratch. Food was the hands-down winner.
The researchers evaluated the pulling power of pieces of carrot against a decent scratch on the withers during a training task.
Carol Sankey, Séverine Henry, Aleksandra Górecka-Bruzda, Marie-Annick Richard-Yris and Hausberger devised a simple experiment in which Konik horses were rewarded by one of the two methods when taught to stand still for a period of time.
Their findings indicated that humankind – a tactile species – may mistakenly believe horses derive more benefit from the human touch than is actually the case.
In short, they suggest that horses simply aren’t the touchy-feely type.
“While in some species, like humans, physical contact plays a role in the process of attachment, it has been suggested that tactile contact’s value may greatly differ according to the species considered,” the researchers noted.
“Grooming is often considered as a pleasurable experience for domestic animals, even though scientific data is lacking. on another hand, food seems to be involved in the creation of most relationships in a variety of species.”
만져주거나 그루밍보다 먹이로 보상하는 것이 더 빠른 효과를 냈으며 사람과의 관계에 더 긍정적인 영향을 끼쳤다. 먹을 것은 유대관계를 형성하는데 중요한 열쇠를 쥔 것으로 나타났다.
The food-rewarded horses progressed rapidly, especially during the first three days of training, the researchers noted, while the groomed horses’ progression was limited to the first two days of training, after which they stagnated.
The researchers also found that the food-rewarded training had a more positive impact on the animals’ relationship with the person, based on their approaches and interest.
“Grooming the withers therefore does not appear to be an efficient reinforcement for horses,” they concluded.
Food, they said, appeared to be one of the keys in the bonding process in the human-horse relationship. 남자의 마음을 사로잡으려면 그의 배를 채워주라는 속담처럼 말을 포함한 다른 동물들에게도 이것이 통하는 것 같다.
“There is an idiomatic ｅxpression that says: ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’. It seems that this may not only apply to humans, but could indeed be the case for many species, [including] horses,” Sankey and her colleagues said.
Category: Research
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