An investigation of two ostensibly inhibitory control tasks used in canine cognition

Abstract

Pet dogs inhabit a largely human-dominated context in which they must inhibit species-typical behaviors – such as resource-guarding, barking, and mounting – to meet the expectations of their human caretakers. The safety and welfare implications of this delicate balance have led many researchers in the past decade to take an interest in motor self-regulation, particularly from an individual differences perspective. Two tasks that have become popular during this time for measuring motor self-regulation are the cylinder task and the AB task. While these tasks presumably measure the same construct, performance seldom correlates between the two and researchers have proposed that they might not be sufficiently difficult to reflect individual differences. Further complicating the matter are lack of reliability estimates and evidence of the tasks’ validity. The current study aimed to increase task difficulty of the cylinder task to make it more reflective of individual differences while also obtaining estimates of test-retest reliability, internal consistency reliability, and construct validity. In Experiment 1, subjects completed the cylinder task either under normal conditions or following motor self-control exertion. In Experiment 2, subjects performed the task either with or without learning trials. Subjects in both experiments also completed the AB task. Subject task performance was compared to owner-reported measures of self-regulation for construct validity, and measures of test-retest and internal consistency reliability were obtained. In Experiment 1, performance was worse following exertion, but only to the degree subjects exhibited self-regulation over their motor movements, suggesting that the cylinder task indeed measures a limited, effortful process. In Experiment 2, subjects’ performance was not influenced by the omission of the learning phase. Across both experiments, performance on cylinder and AB tasks was uncorrelated with each other, and with owner-reported measures of impulsivity. Implications of these results and suggestions for future directions are discussed.