Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs.
Anim Cogn
; 17(1): 15-31, 2014 Jan.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-23584618
ABSTRACT
Across three experiments, we explored whether a dog's capacity for inhibitory control is stable or variable across decision-making contexts. In the social task, dogs were first exposed to the reputations of a stingy experimenter that never shared food and a generous experimenter who always shared food. In subsequent test trials, dogs were required to avoid approaching the stingy experimenter when this individual offered (but withheld) a higher-value reward than the generous experimenter did. In the A-not-B task, dogs were required to inhibit searching for food in a previously rewarded location after witnessing the food being moved from this location to a novel hiding place. In the cylinder task, dogs were required to resist approaching visible food directly (because it was behind a transparent barrier), in favor of a detour reaching response. Overall, dogs exhibited inhibitory control in all three tasks. However, individual scores were not correlated between tasks, suggesting that context has a large effect on dogs' behavior. This result mirrors studies of humans, which have highlighted intra-individual variation in inhibitory control as a function of the decision-making context. Lastly, we observed a correlation between a subject's age and performance on the cylinder task, corroborating previous observations of age-related decline in dogs' executive function.
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Cães
/
Inibição Psicológica
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2014
Tipo de documento:
Article