Side bias behaviour in dogs shows parallels to the hemispatial neglect syndrome

Abstract

There is a growing trend for the use of alternative translational model animals in cognitive neuroscience. The aim of the present study was to investigate side bias, a common phenomenon among family dogs and parallel it to the behavioural symptoms of hemispatial neglect syndrome. N = 29 family dogs (Canis familiaris) were recruited based on their history of side bias behaviour in previous two-way choice tests. 24 of them showed side bias in the present study as well suggesting that the phenomenon is stable across time and situations. Similarly to neglect, dogs relied on an egocentric reference frame in making their choices as demonstrated by the spatial rotation of the test setup. Contrary to our expectations there was no double dissociation to near and far places, but human literature is not conclusive in this sense either. Moreover, unlike in human neglect, there was no population-level side bias in dogs towards either side. In sum, we identified a certain subgroup of dogs that can develop strong side bias in two-way choice tasks, a neglect-like behaviour without any evidence of brain injury. We propose that investigating side biased dogs can open a new way in non-invasive translational modelling, however further empirical research is needed.