Skip to main content

Table 1 Abbreviations and descriptions of the physiological, behavioural and vocal parameters measured

From: Perception of emotional valence in horse whinnies

  Abbreviation Description Arousal/Valence
Physiology RR (ms) Inter-heart-beat interval A
RespRate (breaths/s) Respiration rate A
SkinT (°C) Skin temperature V + A
Behaviour Locomotion Proportion of time spent moving (walk, trot or canter) A
HeadMov (min-1) Number of rapid head movements per minute V + A
HeadHigh Proportion of time spent with the eye line above the tip of the shoulder V
Chewing Proportion of time spent chewing (i.e. moving the lower jaw up and down in a chewing motion). This behaviour is performed without the presence of food in the mouth V + A
VocRate (min-1) Number of vocalisations (whinnies or nickers) per minute V (nickers)
LatenceRes Latency from the onset of the call played back to the first behavioural response (including all the above described behaviours) -
Vocalisations Dur (s) Duration of the whinny V + A
G0Start (Hz) Frequency value of G0 at the start of the whinny V + A
G0Max (Hz) Maximum G0 frequency value across the whinny V + A
G0Mean (Hz) Mean G0 frequency value across the whinny V + A
F0Start (Hz) Frequency value of F0 at the start of the whinny A
F0Max (Hz) Maximum F0 frequency value across the whinny V + A
F0Mean (Hz) Mean F0 frequency value across the whinny A
AMVar (dB/s) Cumulative variation in amplitude divided by the total whinny duration V + A
AMExtent (dB) Mean peak-to-peak variation of each amplitude modulation V + A
Q25% (Hz) Frequency value at the upper limit of the first quartiles of energy V + A
Q50% (Hz) Frequency value at the upper limit of the second quartiles of energy V + A
Q75% (Hz) Frequency value at the upper limit of the third quartiles of energy V + A
  1. Whether each parameter was significantly affected by emotional valence (V) or arousal (A) in our previous study [24] is indicated. Bold “V” indicates reliable cues to valence, i.e. parameters that were changing consistently with valence and were clearly more affected by valence than arousal. Bold “A” indicates reliable cues to arousal, i.e. parameters that were changing consistently with arousal and were clearly more affected by arousal than valence [24]
Back to article page

Frontiers in Zoology

ISSN: 1742-9994