Abstract
Certain personality traits (e.g. anxiousness, fearfulness), are known to affect the cognitive processing of environmental stimuli, such as the judgement of ambiguous stimuli (judgement bias). Our aim was to assess if personality traits are predictive of a more or less ‘pessimistic’ or ‘optimistic’ judgement bias in the domestic dog. We assessed dog personality (N = 31) using two validated protocols: the Dog Mentality Assessment (standardised battery test) and the CBARQ (owner-based survey). We used a common task based on the animals’ latency to approach a bowl placed in one of three ambiguous positions (Near Positive, Middle, Near Negative) between a baited (Positive) and a non-baited food bowl (Negative) to assess judgement bias. Linear Mixed Model analyses revealed that dogs scoring higher on sociability, excitability and non-social-fear had shorter response latencies to bowls in an ambiguous location, indicating a more ‘optimistic’ bias. In contrast, dogs scoring higher on separation-related-behaviour and dog-directed-fear/aggression traits were more likely to judge an ambiguous stimulus as leading to a negative outcome, indicating a more ‘pessimistic’ bias. Results, partially consistent with previous findings in humans, indicate that personality plays a role in the cognitive processing of environmental stimuli in the domestic dog.
Highlights
The extensive literature on human psychology demonstrates how the valence of an individual’s emotional state appears to influence a number of cognitive functions including attention, memory and judgement[1]
Animals in a negative emotional state would be more likely to interpret the ambiguous cues as predicting a negative event (‘pessimism’) and, vice-versa, animals in a positive emotional state would be more likely to interpret the ambiguous cues as predicting a positive event (‘optimism’)[7]
Nine dogs did not reach the learning criterion in the training phase of the judgement bias task (JBT), the final sample included in the analysis was 31 dogs
Summary
The extensive literature on human psychology demonstrates how the valence of an individual’s emotional state (affect) appears to influence a number of cognitive functions including attention, memory and judgement[1]. Karagiannis and colleagues[12] demonstrated how clinical treatments for separation-related problems did improve the behaviour, and the psychological state, of the patients (i.e. dogs had a more ‘optimistic’ approach to the judgement bias task after the treatment than before the treatment), whereas Müller and colleagues[11] showed how a short-term manipulation (i.e. owner absence) did not induce a negative cognitive bias in pet dogs suffering from mild separation anxiety. This link between personality and judgement bias remains largely unexplored in non-human animals. The use of both tools allows the assessment of a more comprehensive range of personality traits
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