Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Anim Cogn. 2021 May;24(3):511-531. doi: 10.1007/s10071-020-01447-3. Epub 2020 Nov 13.
Assessments for spatial working memory (SWM) in pet dogs that can detect age-related cognitive deficits in a single session may aid in diagnosing canine dementia and may facilitate translational research on Alzheimer's disease in humans. Adaptive testing procedures are widely used in single-session assessments for humans with diverse cognitive abilities. In this study, we designed and deployed two up-down staircase assessments for SWM in which 26 pet dogs were required to recall the location of a treat hidden behind one of two identical boxes following delays of variable length. In the first experiment, performance tended to decline with age but few dogs completed the test (n = 10). However, all of the dogs that participated in the second experiment (n = 24) completed the assessment and provided reliable evidence of learning and retaining the task. Delay length and age significantly predicted performance supporting the validity of this assessment. The relationships between age and performance were described by inverted U-shaped functions as both old and young dogs displayed deficits in weighted cumulative-scores and trial-by-trial performance. Thus, SWM in pet dogs may develop until midlife and decline thereafter. Exploratory analyses of non-mnemonic fixation strategies, sustained engagement, inhibitory control, and potential improvements for future SWM assessments which adopt this paradigm are also discussed.
评估宠物犬的空间工作记忆（SWM），如果能在单次测试中检测到与年龄相关的认知缺陷，可能有助于诊断犬类痴呆症，并促进人类阿尔茨海默病的转化研究。自适应测试程序广泛用于具有不同认知能力的人类单次测试评估中。在这项研究中，我们设计并部署了两种用于 SWM 的上下阶梯评估，要求 26 只宠物犬在两个相同盒子中的一个后面回忆隐藏的食物的位置，延迟时间不等。在第一个实验中，表现往往随年龄增长而下降，但很少有狗完成测试（n=10）。然而，所有参与第二个实验的狗（n=24）都完成了评估，并提供了学习和保留任务的可靠证据。延迟时间和年龄显著预测了表现，支持了这种评估的有效性。年龄和表现之间的关系可以用倒 U 形函数来描述，因为老年和年轻的狗在加权累积分数和逐次试验表现上都存在缺陷。因此，宠物犬的 SWM 可能会在中年之前发展，之后会下降。我们还探讨了非记忆性固定策略、持续参与、抑制控制的探索性分析，以及采用这种范式的未来 SWM 评估的潜在改进。
