You are mistaken, Elinor," said she warmly, "in supposing I know very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but I am much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the world, except yourself and mama. It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy: -- it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. I should hold myself guilty of greater impropriety in accepting a horse from my brother than from Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together for years; but of Willoughby my judgment has long been formed." Oh! Elinor," she cried, "I have such a secret to tell you about Marianne. I am sure she will be married to Mr. Willoughby very soon." The retina contains millions of light-sensitive cells, known as ‘rods’ and ‘cones’, which collect visual information. After this, your horse’s optic nerve, deep within their eye, will send that visual information to their brain to be processed and understood. Colour vision Have you ever seen a horse quietly follow a calm buddy into the trailer but then become anxious when loaded alone? Or maybe you’ve been on a trail ride when one horse suddenly startles and spins, causing the others to startle as well. These are examples of social buffering and emotional contagion—when one individual is affected by or shares the emotions of another¹ ,²—and provide evidence that horses possess the capacity for empathy. What is empathy? Internal states are difficult to study, because they can’t be directly observed. However, behavior can provide insight into what animals feel, think, and know. Emotional mirroring, motor mimicry, and synchronized movements are viewed as evidence of primal empathy,² and the responses are typically unconscious and immediate. Examples that have been used as evidence of animal empathy include contagious yawning, synchronized movement, and gaze-following.

A horse’s senses include smell (olfactory), taste (gustatory), sight (vision), hearing (auditory), and touch (tactile). Horses are prey animals, which means they must always be aware of their environment in case of predators. Marianne reproved him warmly for using such expressions. Sir John, not understanding, only laughed and continued his bantering. The understanding of the sensory abilities of horses is also of growing importance in the use of horses in sport and leisure. Welfare concerns surround various practices in horse sports including hyperflexion of the cervical vertebrae, the use of tight constrictive nosebands ( 6) and in horse racing the use of the whip has come under increasing scrutiny ( 7).

He intends to send his groom into Somersetshire immediately for it," she added, "and when it arrives, we will ride every day. You shall share its use with me. Imagine to yourself, my dear Elinor, the delight of a gallop on some of these downs."

Margaret," said Marianne, with great warmth, "you know that all this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in existence." Studies have also linked self-awareness with empathy, but it requires the cognitive capacity to distinguish self from other that goes beyond emotional state-matching.² Humans, some nonhuman primates, elephants, and dolphins show self-recognition using the mirror test. In most studies, the mirror test involves applying a paint mark on the animal’s face. Animals with self-recognition will look at the mirror image and then touch the mark on their own face, but those without self-recognition will touch the mark on the mirror image or react to the image in some other way. Using this test, horses do not appear to possess self-recognition.Animals, like humans, have five basic senses: vision, audition (hearing), olfaction (smell), gustation (taste), and touch. The senses are an important part of what makes horses behaviorally distinct. They are the tools that a horse uses to interact with its environment. As such, the senses can be considered behavior starters. We do not completely understand the horse senses, but what we have learned has greatly added to our knowledge of horses. A review of this information can be helpful in understanding horses. Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to be sure. He is the curate of the parish I dare say." Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness of Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character, as the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been happy and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted;—nor that he long thought of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret. But that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be depended on—for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity. I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister," said John, as they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford House, "THAT would be saying too much, for certainly you have been one of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is. But, I confess, it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon brother. His property here, his place, his house, every thing is in such respectable and excellent condition!—and his woods!—I have not seen such timber any where in Dorsetshire, as there is now standing in Delaford Hanger!—And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly the person to attract him—yet I think it would altogether be advisable for you to have them now frequently staying with you, for as Colonel Brandon seems a great deal at home, nobody can tell what may happen—for, when people are much thrown together, and see little of anybody else—and it will always be in your power to set her off to advantage, and so forth;—in short, you may as well give her a chance—You understand me."— Life as a large cursorial ungulate living in mainly open habitats such as grasslands, presents unique challenges for survival. In such an environment, predators have the advantage of being able to constantly monitor the position and movements of prey such as horses. Unsurprisingly therefore, horses have evolved sensory abilities that are optimal for predator detection and escape. Equine visual abilities provide the perfect example of such adaptations.

Horses can respond to a training command given at a very low volume. We don’t need to shout to be heard. Also, horses are very sensitive to the tone of voice. We need to use a confident tone and avoid overly emotional tones such as shrill, high pitches. We also want to give voice commands in a way that gives the horse tools to distinguish them. For example, if you are longeing a horse at a walk and want to perform an upward transition to a trot, you may want to divide the word “trot” into two syllables and raise your voice an octave as you say “to – rot”! When performing the downward transition from the trot to the walk, you would lower your voice an octave on the second syllable of “wa – alk.” Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resuscitation of Edward, she had one again. The sensory abilities of horses are closely linked with their perception and therefore their behavior ( Figure 1). Horses and humans share the five most common sensory modalities, but their range and acuity differ between the two species, so that horses are unlikely to perceive their surroundings in the same way as we do. Although it is often assumed otherwise, equine sensory abilities are different from those of humans, and hence a better understanding of the sensory abilities of horses is fundamental to horse-human interactions and broadly in equitation science, particularly in light of the emerging focus on positive welfare. Equitation science promotes an objective, evidence-based understanding of the welfare of horses in their interactions with humans by applying valid, quantitative scientific methods ( 3). Despite horses having been described in the past as one of the most perceptive of animals ( 4), research on equine sensory abilities is limited, and has mainly focused on hearing and vision. Olfaction and tactile sensitivity, on the other hand, has only been studied sparsely. Horses have a well-developed olfactory epithelium ( 5), suggesting an extensive role of the sense of smell, but only few studies have investigated the olfactory capacity of horses, focusing mainly on its relation to reproduction and social behavior. It is also surprising that despite touch being the main means of communication between the rider and the horse, only seven peer-reviewed published studies can be found on this subject.The sensory abilities of horses differ from those of humans in a number of aspects. Equine vision is similar to that of red-green color-blind humans and horses see better in low light than humans. Horses can see almost a full circle around themselves and have a broad rather than a centralized focus They can hear sound frequencies that humans cannot, but unlike most other large land mammals, they hear higher but not lower frequency sounds compared with humans. In addition, horses have a highly developed sense of smell, which is often overlooked, both in equine research as well as training. Horses are very sensitive to touch, but their tactile sensitivity has been very sparsely studied, despite it being used extensively in horse training and handling. The sensory abilities of individual horses may be a stable personality trait, with equine perception affected also by breed, age and in some cases even coat color, highlighting the need to differentiate the care and management of individual horses. There may be unexploited potential of using sensory enrichment/positive sensory stimulation to improve the welfare of horses in various situations e.g., using odors (or signature mixtures), touch or sound to enrich their environment or to appease horses. Inner ear cells – surrounding the vestibular apparatus – are responsible for converting sound waves into electrical impulses, which are then sent to your horse’s brain to be processed. Interpreting sound From such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not withhold her credit: nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance was in perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself. The skin is the largest organ in horses as well as humans, and the body surface of the horse is thus the largest of the sensory organs. From the evolutionary standpoint, as a prey species it is unsurprising that the horse is a tactile-sensitive animal and has excellent operant conditioning abilities, particularly in negative reinforcement (learning via the removal of an aversive stimulus). Such tactile sensitivity may have served the adaptive purpose of resisting and disabling entrapment by predators, however it also serendipitously foreshadowed the horse becoming the most popular and ubiquitous ridden animal. Tactile stimulation of the surface of the skin is the main interface of communication between a horse and a rider, and also between a horse and human handler.