Sorry for your loss: Physiological predictors of sensitivity to reward value and loss in horses.
Date/Time
Date(s) - Wed, Jul 15, 2026 MDT
10:00 am - 11:30 am

Animals are biologically driven to seek reward and avoid punishment to increase their adaptive fitness. Well-adapted animals demonstrate behavioural flexibility in their approach to reward acquisition; a lack of reward-seeking behaviour and flexibility can have dire consequences for survival. Investigating reward sensitivity can help us better understand the motivations underlying reward-related behaviours and can also be used as a tool to indicate welfare states in animals. An individual’s response to reward loss (i.e. loss of expected reward) can also be used to indicate affective state and overall welfare status. Human studies have revealed that individuals in a negative affective state are more sensitive to reward loss than those in good welfare states. To knowledge, responses to reward value and loss have not been previously investigated in horses. This study investigated reward sensitivity in horses using two distinct test phases: reward value discrimination and reward loss. The aims were 1) To determine if horses are sensitive to reward value discrepancy and loss of reward and 2) To investigate physiological predictors of reward-related decisions in each phase.