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Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Bray, EE; MacLean, EL; Hare, BA
Published in: Animal cognition
January 2014

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.

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Published In

Animal cognition

DOI

EISSN

1435-9456

ISSN

1435-9448

Publication Date

January 2014

Volume

17

Issue

1

Start / End Page

15 / 31

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Behavior
  • Reward
  • Male
  • Inhibition, Psychological
  • Female
  • Executive Function
  • Dogs
  • Discrimination, Psychological
  • Decision Making
  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology
 

Citation

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Bray, E. E., MacLean, E. L., & Hare, B. A. (2014). Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs. Animal Cognition, 17(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0633-z
Bray, Emily E., Evan L. MacLean, and Brian A. Hare. “Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs.Animal Cognition 17, no. 1 (January 2014): 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-013-0633-z.
Bray EE, MacLean EL, Hare BA. Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs. Animal cognition. 2014 Jan;17(1):15–31.
Bray, Emily E., et al. “Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs.Animal Cognition, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 15–31. Epmc, doi:10.1007/s10071-013-0633-z.
Bray EE, MacLean EL, Hare BA. Context specificity of inhibitory control in dogs. Animal cognition. 2014 Jan;17(1):15–31.
Journal cover image

Published In

Animal cognition

DOI

EISSN

1435-9456

ISSN

1435-9448

Publication Date

January 2014

Volume

17

Issue

1

Start / End Page

15 / 31

Related Subject Headings

  • Social Behavior
  • Reward
  • Male
  • Inhibition, Psychological
  • Female
  • Executive Function
  • Dogs
  • Discrimination, Psychological
  • Decision Making
  • Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology