6-8-2013

Definition of EQUINITION^©?

Well, let’s start with defining the word COGNITION:

In science, cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing and understanding language, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making. –http://en.wikipedia.org

WHOA! Wait a minute, you say.

Horses can reason? Solve problems? Make decisions?

Yep, they sure can. They do all the time.

And in this section of Training Horses … Naturally! we’ll explore just this … HOW horses think. HOW horses learn. HOW horses make COGNITIVE choices and decisions.  We’ll back it up with science as well as with incidental/anecdotal sharings from others who have, first hand, experienced or witnessed such thinking processes from … THE HORSE.

Stay tuned …

“I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. 18 I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. 19 For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.[b] 20 All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.” –Ecclesiastes 3:17-20

LINKS:

Equine Zooanthropology
The Cognitive Horse
Amazing Grays Ministry: Christian Horse Training

ARTICLES:

• The Thinking Horse: Cognition and Perception Reviewed by Evelyn B. Hanggi, MS, PhD
• Social Cognition and Social Learning in Horses by Konstanze Krueger, University of Regensburg,Departement Biology I, Universitaetsstraße 31, D-93053 Regensburg
• Equine ZooAnthropology Definitions