Checking our equines for signs of pain or discomfort is an important part of daily horse care, but are we as successful at reading our horses signals as we think? A new study hasexamined the effectiveness of humans in recognising pain in horses by looking at their faces, and it has found we may be less proficient at doing so than previously thought. Scientists at Bournemouth University (BU) conducted a study where a group of people, some with experience of horses and others with nonewere shown pictures of humans and horsesfaces and asked if they could tell whether the horse or human was in pain or not.Their responses were compared with those of 10 equine behaviour experts.Overall, the accuracy of pain recognition was higher for those studying human faces than horse faces, but participants with equestrian experience were more accurate at pain recognition in horse faces, with the accuracy increasing with the more experience they had.Humans depend on horses as work animals and are used in leisure and sportacross the world, but theextent to which we can recognise pain in horses has never been studied, said Nicola J. Gregory, Principal Academic in Psychology who led the study. We showed that people are generally very poor at seeing pain in horses, but people who have a lot of horseexperience were a great deal better at recognising these subtle signs of pain.The study involving a team of psychologists from BU,Anglia Ruskin University and Sao Pauo Universitylooked athow experiences of social anxiety influenced peoples ability to see pain in horses and human faces. We werent surprised that pain was easier to recognise in human faces, as we are exposed to these much more than animals, buta veryinteresting finding was that people who were more socially anxious were more accurate at recognising pain in the human faces butalso saw more pain in the horses faces even when it wasnt there, added Nicola.It is hoped that the findings will helpbuild up a picture of which factors are important in recognisingemotions in horses so that better supportcan be given to owners to help them notice changes which might indicate pain.Lead image by ShutterstockRelated contentEquine vet explains how to keep a horses joints healthyHow much weight can a horse carry?These are the pros and cons to consider before keeping a horse barefootHorses show subtle signs of stress long before the bad behaviour stage, says expertThe post Can you recognise pain in your horses face? New study explores how well we detect discomfort appeared first on Your Horse.