Blind Letter Test With Misha | 2 Errors, Both Explained by Distance

This video shows a blind letter-matching test with Misha. I present a target letter to the camera and to the horse, but I do not know which letter it is myself at the moment of presentation. I see only the blank reverse side of the card. Misha then goes to the stand and selects the matching letter from the set of letters. In this session, there were two errors. In both cases, the problem did not seem to be a lack of understanding of the task. Misha moved in the correct direction, but as he came close to the stand, he lost confidence and chose a neighboring letter instead. The likely reason is methodological: I had not taken him far enough back before the trial. For this task, distance matters. If the horse starts from too close to the letters, the final phase of selection becomes much more difficult. Horses have a near-field blind zone, and when Misha approaches the stand and begins to hesitate, the chance of an error becomes much higher. So these two errors are important not only as mistakes, but also as information about the structure of the task: Misha needs enough distance to see clearly, orient properly, and make a confident final choice. This video is part of ongoing work on blind testing, symbolic discrimination, and cognitive tasks in horses. #BlindTest #HorseCognition #MishaTheHorse #LetterRecognition #AnimalCognition #EquineCognition #ThinkingHorse #HorseTraining #SymbolicDiscrimination