Preference Task Research Articles

Offloading dependent tasks in MEC-enabled IoT systems: A preference-based hybrid optimization method

The rapid development of IoT-based services has resulted in an exponential increase in the number of connected smart mobile devices (SMDs). Processing the massive data generated by the large number of SMDs is becoming a big problem for mobile devices, servers, and wireless communication channels. A Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) paradigm partially mitigates this problem by deploying edge server nodes at the edge of wireless networks nearby SMDs, but the challenge still remains due to the limited computation capacity of MEC servers and the bandwidth of wireless channels. In addition, the dependency of tasks generated by applications on SMDs increases the complexity of the problem. In this paper, we propose a constrained multiobjective computation offloading optimization solution to resolve the problem of task dependency under limited resources. This solution improves the Quality of Service (QoS) through minimizing the latency, energy consumption, and rate of task failure caused by limited resources. We propose a two-staged hybrid computation offloading optimization method to solve the problem. In the first stage, the computation offloading decisions are made based on the preferences of tasks. Then, in the second stage, nearly optimal solutions are found using the modified Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-III). The overall efficiency of the proposed method is increased owing to the preference-based algorithm reinforcing the NSGA-III algorithm by generating a better initial population. The results of extensive experiments show that the efficiency of the proposed method is significantly better than the existing methods.

The predictive value of the cognitive scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III

The measurement of cognitive development is of major importance within developmental psychology research. However, empirical findings from longitudinal studies using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III (BSID-III) are scarce. Moreover, few studies have assessed the predictive relationship between the BSID-III and later IQ measurements using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI-III). The aims of the current study were to investigate (1) the predictive relationship within the first, second, and third year of life using the Cognitive Scale of the BSID-III, (2) the predictive relationship between the Cognitive Scale of the BSID-III and the WPPSI-III Verbal IQ, Performance IQ and Full Scale IQ scores in the fifth year of life, and (3) the relationship of habituation speed and novelty preference with BSID-III and WPPSI-III scores. Therefore, 110 children were tested with the BSID-III at the ages of 6, 9, 18, and 26 months, with a habituation and novelty preference task at 9 months, and with the WPPSI-III at 50 months. Structural equation modeling revealed that BSID-III at all ages predicted the children’s IQ obtained using the WPPSI-III at 50 months. Furthermore, all BSID-III scores predicted subsequent BSID-III scores. These findings highlight the predictive value of the Cognitive Scale of the BSID-III. Habituation speed and novelty preference were not related to the BSID-III or WPPSI-III scores. Explanations for these findings, limitations, and ideas for future studies are discussed.

Neural and functional validation of fMRI-informed EEG model of right inferior frontal gyrus activity

The right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) is a region involved in the neural underpinning of cognitive control across several domains such as inhibitory control and attentional allocation process. Therefore, it constitutes a desirable neural target for brain-guided interventions such as neurofeedback (NF). To date, rIFG-NF has shown beneficial ability to rehabilitate or enhance cognitive functions using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI-NF). However, the utilization of fMRI-NF for clinical purposes is severely limited, due to its poor scalability. The present study aimed to overcome the limited applicability of fMRI-NF by developing and validating an EEG model of fMRI-defined rIFG activity (hereby termed "Electrical FingerPrint of rIFG"; rIFG-EFP). To validate the computational model, we employed two experiments in healthy individuals. The first study (n = 14) aimed to test the target engagement of the model by employing rIFG-EFP-NF training while simultaneously acquiring fMRI. The second study (n = 41) aimed to test the functional outcome of two sessions of rIFG-EFP-NF using a risk preference task (known to depict cognitive control processes), employed before and after the training. Results from the first study demonstrated neural target engagement as expected, showing associated rIFG-BOLD signal changing during simultaneous rIFG-EFP-NF training. Target anatomical specificity was verified by showing a more precise prediction of the rIFG-BOLD by the rIFG-EFP model compared to other EFP models. Results of the second study suggested that successful learning to up-regulate the rIFG-EFP signal through NF can reduce one's tendency for risk taking, indicating improved cognitive control after two sessions of rIFG-EFP-NF. Overall, our results confirm the validity of a scalable NF method for targeting rIFG activity by using an EEG probe.

Temozolomide treatment inhibits spontaneous motivation for exploring a complex object in mice: A potential role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis in "curiosity".

Intrinsic exploratory biases are an innate motivation for exploring certain types of stimuli or environments over others, and they may be associated with cognitive, emotional, and even personality-like traits. However, their neurobiological basis has been scarcely investigated. Considering the involvement of the hippocampus in novelty recognition and in spatial and pattern separation tasks, this work researched the role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis (AHN) in intrinsic exploratory bias for a perceptually complex object in mice. Spontaneous object preference tasks revealed that both male and female C57BL/6J mice showed a consistent unconditioned preference for exploring "complex"-irregular-objects over simpler ones. Furthermore, increasing objects' complexity resulted in an augmented time of object exploration. In a different experiment, male mice received either vehicle or the DNA alkylating agent temozolomide (TMZ) for 4 weeks, a pharmacological treatment that reduced AHN as evidenced by immunohistochemistry. After assessment in a behavioral test battery, the TMZ-treated mice did not show any alterations in general exploratory and anxiety-like responses. However, when tested in the spontaneous object preference task, the TMZ-treated mice did not display enhanced exploration of the complex object, as evidenced both by a reduced exploration time-specifically for the complex object-and a lack of preference for the complex object over the simple one. This study supports a novel role of AHN in intrinsic exploratory bias for perceptual complexity. Moreover, the spontaneous complex object preference task as a rodent model of "curiosity" is discussed.

Word Order variation in L1 and L2 Italian speakers: the role of Focus and the Unaccusativity Hierarchy

This paper investigates the Italian Word Order variation in the position of subjects (S) with respect to finite predicates (V) in two adult populations: L1-Italian speakers and L1-French L2-Italian speakers. We test how discourse focus (Belletti, 2001) and a decomposed approach to Unaccusativity, i.e., Unaccusativity Hierarchy (Sorace, 2000), determine the SV/VS variation in L1 and L2 populations. The results of a forced-choice preference task show that both factors constrain the Italian word order in L1 and L2 Italian speakers: the VS order was preferred in the narrow focus and with Change of Location unaccusative verbs in both populations, although with different proportions. Overall L2 speakers chose the SV order more consistently than L1 speakers but they did so mainly with the less-core unaccusative verbs of the Unaccusativity Hierarchy. We account for these findings suggesting a return to the original version of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2005), which predicts that interface phenomena, including those at the syntax-lexicon interface, represent a vulnerable domain in L2 acquisition.

Attentional Engagement and Disengagement Differences for Circumscribed Interest Objects in Young Chinese Children with Autism.

The current study aimed to investigate attentional processing differences for circumscribed interest (CI) and non-CI objects in young Chinese children with autism spectrum condition (ASC) and typically developing (TD) controls. In Experiment 1, a visual preference task explored attentional allocation to cartoon CI and non-CI materials between the two groups. We found that ASC children (n = 22, 4.95 ± 0.59 years) exhibited a preference for CI-related objects compared to non-CI objects, and this effect was absent in the TD children (n = 22, 5.14 ± 0.44 years). Experiment 2 utilized the traditional gap-overlap paradigm (GOP) to investigate attentional disengagement from CI or non-CI items in both groups (ASC: n = 20, 5.92 ± 1.13 years; TD: n = 25, 5.77 ± 0.77 years). There were no group or stimulus interactions in this study. Experiment 3 adopted a modified GOP (MGOP) to further explore disengagement in the two groups (ASC: n = 20, 5.54 ± 0.95 years; TD: n = 24, 5.75 ± 0.52 years), and the results suggested that exogenous disengagement performance was preserved in the ASC group, but the children with ASC exhibited increased endogenous attentional disengagement compared to TD peers. Moreover, endogenous disengagement was influenced further in the presence of CI-related objects in the ASC children. The current results have implications for understanding how the nature of engagement and disengagement processes can contribute to differences in the development of core cognitive skills in young children with ASC.

Inlediğini Anlama Becerisini Değerlendirme Görev Biçimleri: Yabancı Dil Olarak Türkçe Öğretimi Ders Kitapları ve Öğretim Elemanlarının Seçimleri Üzerine Karşılaştırmalı Bir İnceleme

The aim of the study is to examine the frequency and distribution of the task formats in the evaluation of listening comprehension skills in the Turkish language teaching textbooks for foreigners. This study also aims to compare these findings with the practices preferred in the exams by the instructors teaching Turkish as a foreign language. In the study, sequential exploratory design was applied by using document analysis and descriptive method. Three widely used textbooks and 36 instructors as the participants have formed the scope of the study. The findings indicate that the most frequently preferred task formats in the books are gap-filling and dichotomous item. As a result of the z-test, a significant difference between the textbooks in terms of the ratios of short-answer question, multiple-choice item, matching, and dichotomous item task formats has been found. Dichotomous item, gap-filling, sentence completion, short answer questions, information transfer, multiple choice and matching have been the most preferred task formats by the instructors in the exams. As a result of Kruskal Wallis test, no significant difference was found between the participants in terms of preferring the evaluation task formats according to the variables of graduation degree, last graduated department, and professional experience.

Measuring social orienting in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder using cartoons stimuli

Altered social orienting (SO) was proposed as the primary source of socio-communicative difficulties in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Eye-tracking studies generally confirm a decreased SO in ASD population. However, SO has been scarcely investigated using minimally social stimuli such as cartoons. The extent to which SO might be decreased when watching cartoons is therefore unknown. Yet, it could allow for malleable and child-friendly paradigms that could be sensitive to early atypical visual preference. In this study, 90 preschoolers with ASD (age = 3.19 ± 0 .88) and 20 TD (age = 2.95 ± 1.26) watched two eye-tracking preference tasks. One Realistic task, displaying children dancing versus geometric shapes moving repetitively and a Cartoon task, displaying social and non-social cartoon stimuli with similar movements. We measured SO percentage along with refined visual exploration parameters and compared those of ASD children to TDs. In addition, we investigated their relations with behavioral measures such as symptom severity, developmental and adaptive levels. We evidenced a decreased SO percentage in ASD compared to TD children when watching the Realistic task but not the Cartoon task. We did not identify any other between groups differences. However, we identified several correlations between eye-tracking measures and developmental as well as adaptive measures within the Cartoon task. Together, our results support a preferential orientation of children with autism towards repetitively moving shapes but no decreased SO when measured with minimally social stimuli. Nonetheless, when investigating finer visual exploration parameters, even socially simple stimuli elicited atypical gaze patterns related to early developmental delay.

In a Child's Shoes: Composite Time Trade-Off Valuations for EQ-5D-Y-3L with Different Proxy Perspectives.

Background and ObjectivesEQ-5D-Y-3L health states are commonly valued by asking adults to complete stated preference tasks, ‘given their views about a 10-year-old child’ (hereafter referred to as proxy 1). The use of this perspective has been a source of debate. In this paper, we investigated an alternative proxy perspective: i.e. adults considered what they think a 10-year old-child would decide for itself (hereafter, proxy 2 (substitute)]. Our main objective was to explore how the outcomes, dispersion and response patterns of a composite time trade-off valuation differ between proxy 1 and proxy 2.MethodsA team of four trained interviewers completed 402 composite time trade-off interviews following the EQ-5D-Y-3L protocol. Respondents were randomly allocated to value health states in either the proxy 1 or proxy 2 (substitute) perspective. Each respondent valued ten health states with the perspective they were assigned to, as well as one health state with the alternative perspective (33333).ResultsThe use of different proxy perspectives yielded differences in EQ-5D-Y-3L valuation. For states in which children had considerable pain and were very worried, sad or unhappy, respondents’ valuations were lower in proxy 1 than in proxy 2 (substitute) perspectives, by about 0.2. Within-subject variation across health states was lower for proxy 2 (substitute) than proxy 1 perspectives. Analyses of response patterns suggest that data for proxy 2 (substitute) perspectives were less clustered.ConclusionsThere are systematic differences between composite time trade-off responses given by adults deciding for children and adults considering what children would want for themselves. In addition to warranting further qualitative exploration, such differences contribute to the ongoing normative discussion surrounding the source and perspective used for valuation of child and adolescent health.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40273-022-01202-1.

The picky men: Men's preference for women's body differed among attractiveness, health, and fertility conditions

The health and fertility hypothesis suggests that low body weight young women are healthy and fertile, thereby judged as attractive to men. Although it has been widely accepted, few studies have tested the health and fertility hypothesis on a perceptual level, that is whether the most attractive female body is also perceived as the healthiest and most fertile. In the current study, we investigated young and older men's preferences women's body weight, using 3D human body models. With an interactive body preference task, men chose the BMI and body fat of women's body shapes perceived as most attractive, healthiest and most fertile. The results showed that both young and older men had similar patterns of preferences for women's bodies. For BMI, the most attractive body weight was not seen as the healthiest or the most fertile. Compared to the most attractive BMI, higher BMI was required to be seen as the healthiest and this figure was even higher for fertility judgements. Body fat generally showed similar patterns of results as BMI. Our findings challenge the health and fertility hypothesis and point to the alternative explanation that the judgement of women's attractiveness tracks cues indicating youth and low parity.

Lesions of nucleus accumbens shell abolish socially transmitted food preferences.

Rats adapt their food choices to conform to their conspecifics' dietary preferences. The nucleus accumbens shell is a relevant brain region to process reward-related and motivated behaviours and social information. Here, we hypothesize that the integrity of the nucleus accumbens shell is necessary to show socially transmitted food preferences. We made excitotoxic and sham lesions of nucleus accumbens shell in male Long-Evans rats who performed a social transmission of food preference task. In this task, observer rats revealed their original preference for one out of two food options. Afterward, they were exposed to a demonstrator rat who was fed with the observer's originally non-preferred food, and the observer's food choices were sampled again. Sham lesioned observer rats changed their food preferences following interaction with the demonstrator, specifically by increasing the intake of their originally non-preferred food type. This interaction-related change in preference was not found after nucleus accumbens shell lesions. The lesion effects on choice were not the consequence of impaired social or non-social motivation, anxiety or sensory or motor function, suggesting that they reflected a genuine deficit in social reward revaluation. These results highlight the role of nucleus accumbens shell in revaluating food rewards to match a conspecific's preferences.

Free Riding and Workplace Democracy—Heterogeneous Task Preferences and Sorting

A novel laboratory experiment is used to show that mismatching between task preferences and task assignment strongly undermines worker performance and leads to free riding in teams. Unlike prior experiments using real effort tasks, task preferences are elicited from all workers. Under team-based remuneration (revenue sharing), free riding is significant, but this effect is largely driven by those working on undesired tasks. Workers’ endogenous sorting into tasks improves productivity as it mitigates task mismatching although workers’ task selection per se has only small effects on work performance and effort provisions beyond the positive sorting effects. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark [Grant 4182-00163]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4556 .

Ingroup and outgroup preference and rejection among young children of different ethnic groups in the Netherlands

AbstractThe current study investigated the ethnic hierarchy in ingroup and outgroup preference and rejection among 6‐ to 10‐year‐old children of the dominant White Dutch group (n = 145), and the underrepresented Turkish‐Dutch (n = 78), and Afro‐Dutch (n = 57) groups (55% girls, M = 7.49, SD = .98) in the Netherlands. Results from a social preference task indicated that White Dutch children showed clearly more preference for their own ethnic group (ingroup preference) compared to the two outgroup preferences (Middle Eastern and Black), while Turkish‐ and Afro‐Dutch children showed limited ingroup preference. Both White and Turkish‐Dutch children showed less preference for and more rejection of the Black outgroup compared to Afro‐Dutch children. Younger children showed more Black rejection compared to older children. This study provides much‐needed evidence for the generalizability of prejudice patterns in children beyond the United States, and suggests that interventions aimed at improving interethnic relations are already relevant at primary school age.

Öğrenme Tercihi Ölçeği-Analiz’in Geliştirilme Çalışması: Öğretmen Adaylarının Tercihleri

Bu araştırma Öğrenme Tercihleri Ölçeği-Analiz’in (Haciomeroglu, 2012a) geçerlik ve güvenirlik çalışmasının yapılması ve öğretmen adaylarının analiz için öğrenme tercihlerinin belirlenmesini amaçlamaktadır. Geliştirilen Öğrenme Tercihleri Ölçeği-Analiz 7 maddeden oluşmaktadır. Her bir maddede bir analiz sorusu cebirsel ve görsel olarak sunulmaktadır. Her bir madde 5’li Likert tipindedir ve 1 (kesinlikle cebir tercih ederim) ile 5 (kesinlikle grafik tercih ederim) derecelendirmesi kullanılmıştır. Bu araştırma iki kısımda oluşmaktadır. Bu araştırmanın iki amacı bulunmaktadır. İlk aşama öğretmen adaylarının analiz öğrenme tercihlerinin incelenmesi amacıyla bir ölçme aracının geliştirilmesi çalışmasının yapılmasıdır. İkincisi ise ilköğretim matematik öğretmeni adaylarının analiz öğrenme tercihlerinin incelenmesidir. Daha sonra geçerlik ve güvenirlik çalışmaları kapsamında ÖTÖ-A bir devlet üniversitesinin matematik, fen ve kimya öğretmenliği programlarında öğrenim gören 131 birinci sınıf öğrencisine uygulanmıştır. İkinci aşamada matematik eğitimi programının farklı sınıf düzeylerinde öğrenim gören 172 öğretmen adayından veri toplanmıştır. Elden edilen sonuçlar, ÖTÖ-A ölçme aracının öğretmen adaylarının analiz öğrenme tercihlerinin incelemek için geçerli ve güvenilir bir ölçme aracı olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Erkek ve kadın öğretmen adaylarının analiz öğrenme tercihleri arasında anlamlı bir farklılık olmadığı belirlenmiştir. Sınıf düzeyi değişkenine göre öğretmen adaylarının öğrenme tercihleri arasında anlamlı bir farklılık olmadığı belirlenmiştir. Lisans programlarında aldıkları matematik derslerinin öğrenme tercihlerini etkilemediği belirlenmiştir. Öğretmen adaylarının öğrenme deneyimlerini geliştirmek açısından hangi temsillerin az ya da çok etkili olduğunun farkına varılması gerekmektedir. Gelecekte yapılacak araştırmalar öğrenme tercihleri ile analiz soruları için tercih edilen çözümler arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemelidir.

Sensitivity to trustworthiness cues in own- and other-race faces: The role of spatial frequency information.

Research has shown that adults are better at processing faces of the most represented ethnic group in their social environment compared to faces from other ethnicities, and that they rely more on holistic/configural information for identity discrimination in own-race than other-race faces. Here, we applied a spatial filtering approach to the investigation of trustworthiness perception to explore whether the information on which trustworthiness judgments are based differs according to face race. European participants (N = 165) performed an online-delivered pairwise preference task in which they were asked to select the face they would trust more within pairs randomly selected from validated White and Asian broad spectrum, low-pass filter and high-pass filter trustworthiness continua. Results confirmed earlier demonstrations that trustworthiness perception generalizes across face ethnicity, but discrimination of trustworthiness intensity relied more heavily on the LSF content of the images for own-race faces compared to other-race faces. Results are discussed in light of previous work on emotion discrimination and the hypothesis of overlapping perceptual mechanisms subtending social perception of faces.

Elevated Effort Cost Identified by Computational Modeling as a Distinctive Feature Explaining Multiple Behaviors in Patients With Depression

BackgroundMotivational deficit is a core clinical manifestation of depression and a strong predictor of treatment failure. However, the underlying mechanisms, which cannot be accessed through conventional questionnaire-based scoring, remain largely unknown. According to decision theory, apathy could result either from biased subjective estimates (of action costs or outcomes) or from dysfunctional processes (in making decisions or allocating resources). MethodsHere, we combined a series of behavioral tasks with computational modeling to elucidate the motivational deficits of 35 patients with unipolar or bipolar depression under various treatments compared with 35 matched healthy control subjects. ResultsThe most striking feature, which was observed independent of medication across preference tasks (likeability ratings and binary decisions), performance tasks (physical and mental effort exertion), and instrumental learning tasks (updating choices to maximize outcomes), was an elevated sensitivity to effort cost. By contrast, sensitivity to action outcomes (reward and punishment) and task-specific processes were relatively spared. ConclusionsThese results highlight effort cost as a critical dimension that might explain multiple behavioral changes in patients with depression. More generally, they validate a test battery for computational phenotyping of motivational states, which could orientate toward specific medication or rehabilitation therapy, and thereby help pave the way for more personalized medicine in psychiatry.

Optimization of volunteer task assignments to improve volunteer retention and nonprofit organizational performance

Deploying the skills and experiences of nonprofit employees and volunteers is challenging due to resource constraints on nonprofit organizations and the salient characteristics of volunteer labor. This research introduces an integer linear program to make volunteer and employee task assignments for a planned nonprofit program that captures the impact of task assignments on volunteer retention in future periods. Assignments are made to balance the need for urgency of current tasks, organizational task preferences, volunteer trainings, and volunteer preferences (which impact retention). The deterministic optimization model is evaluated using a computational design of experiments with a food bank use case and a simulation model that incorporates uncertainty in volunteer preferences and retention. The developed model, which captures the impact of task assignment on expected volunteer retention, is compared to a simpler benchmark that ignores task assignment's impact on volunteer retention and instead makes assignments maximizing the organization's preferences. The proposed approach is found to be beneficial to nonprofits, even when an NPO has uncertainty in their estimates for volunteer preferences and volunteer retention threshold values.

If they must, they will: Children overcommit to likeliness inferences from deontic modals

Modal verbs like must express two distinct non-actual meanings: deontic (e.g. obligation) and epistemic (e.g. likelihood inference). How do young children understand these modals? What factors affect their interpretation as deontic or epistemic? We report a picture preference task testing preschool children‟s interpretations of Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (BCS) morati 'must' as deontic or epistemic. Prior work on English must shows that despite an early deontic comprehension bias at age 3, by age 5 children have flipped to a strong epistemic bias, including constructions for which adults prefer deontic interpretations (must + eventive verbs). However, properties of English leave open multiple explanations for this non-adult behaviour, as must is primarily epistemic in the input, and must + eventive verb constructions can also receive epistemic interpretations. BCS morati provides a natural comparison: morati is overwhelmingly deontic in the input, and BCS syntax provides categorical cues to deontic versus epistemic interpretation. Our results show that BCS children are more adult-like at age 3 than English children, a difference we attribute to clearer syntactic cues to flavour in BCS. But, by age 5, BCS children behave like English counterparts, selecting epistemic scenes even for constructions that are deontic-only in BCS. We argue this cross-linguistic result is best explained pragmatically: deontic uses of both morati and must invite a likelihood inference that obligations will be normatively carried out. This inference was first proposed to explain diachronic meaning changes from root > epistemic. We show older preschool children commit to this likelihood inference more than adults.

Motivácia profesionálnych tlmočníkov a študentov/absolventov: podobnosti a rozdiely

This paper attempts to compare performance motivation among four groups (professional interpreters with longer and shorter experience, interpreting trainees and recent graduates). The main objective was to identify similarities and differences between the groups compared by using a psychological instrument: the Achievement Motivation Inventory (LMI). The data indicated that there were some similarities but also differences between the four groups. All four groups were very similar on two scales (eagerness to learn and goal setting). In terms of differences, overall, the highest mean scores were most often found in the group of professional interpreters with longer experience (more than 20 years); they dominated on six scales (persistence, dominance, confidence in success, internality, preference for difficult tasks, and independence). The professional interpreters with shorter experience (6 to 10 years) scored highest on four scales (compensatory effort, pride in productivity, self-control, and status orientation). The trainees had the highest mean scores on three scales (engagement, flow, and fearlessness). The recent graduates displayed the highest means on two scales (flexibility and competitiveness). These findings, although they only apply to a small research sample, suggest an association between length of experience and performance motivation scales: the longer an interpreter’s experience in the field, the higher their mean values.

Investigating the influence of neuter status on paw preference in dogs and cats

ABSTRACT Motor lateralization is commonly observed through preferential paw use in dogs and cats. Previous studies have uncovered sex-related differences in paw preference, hypothesizing that these differences may be related to sex hormones. The current study aimed to compare neutered and entire individuals to further investigate whether paw preference is influenced by sex hormones. Dog and cat owners were required to fill in a questionnaire with demographic information such as sex and neuter status of their pets. They then carried out two simple paw preference tasks within their homes: a “reaching for food” task and a “reaching for a toy” task. This study revealed an overall preference among the 272 dogs and 137 cats tested to use their right paw in both tasks. In cats, the degree of paw preference (i.e., regardless of the direction) was significantly influenced by an interaction between neuter status and life stage. Also in dogs, both life stage and an interaction between neuter status and life stage tended to influence the degree of paw preference. Post-hoc power analysis revealed a lack of statistical power, suggesting that future studies using a larger sample size are needed to further investigate potential effects of neuter status on paw preference.