Department of Experimental Psychology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Department of Public Policies and Collective Health, Federal University of São Paulo, Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.
Anim Cogn. 2021 Sep;24(5):907-922. doi: 10.1007/s10071-021-01501-8. Epub 2021 Mar 23.
Communication between dogs and humans is a topic of growing interest, and the "unsolvable task" is a common method used to measure human-directed communication. In this task, dogs learn how to solve a problem to obtain a reward. After a fixed number of trials, the reward becomes impossible to access, arguably leading to communicative attempts from the dog. Although useful to observe dogs' communicative behaviors in a fairly naturalistic situation, the methodology varies among studies regarding apparatus, number of trials, and other factors. The proxies used, for instance, gaze duration or frequency of gaze alternation, also vary, and there are discrepancies and a debate regarding what the task actually measures. Therefore, in this study, we reviewed the usage of the unsolvable task in canids of the genus Canis, searching Web of Science and Scopus for the terms "dog*", "Canis", "dingo*", "wolf" or "wolves" in the title and "unsolvable task" or "impossible task" in the topic. We included thirty-five studies in this review and discussed their different methodologies and proxies, such as different apparatuses, number of solvable trials, and different interpretations of "looking back", pointing out how they can affect results and hinder comparisons. Lastly, we used current data to propose strategies to homogenize the use of this important paradigm, with an ethogram of possible behaviors and their interpretation and a predefined set of methodological aspects for future research.
狗和人类之间的交流是一个日益受到关注的话题，而“不可解决任务”是一种常用的方法，用于衡量人类指向的交流。在这个任务中，狗学会如何解决问题以获得奖励。在经过一定数量的尝试后，奖励变得无法获得，这可能会导致狗发出交流尝试。虽然这种方法在观察狗在相当自然的情况下的交流行为很有用，但在研究中，该方法在仪器、尝试次数和其他因素方面存在差异。例如，使用的代理，如注视持续时间或注视交替的频率，也有所不同，对于该任务实际上衡量什么，存在差异和争议。因此，在这项研究中，我们回顾了不可解决任务在犬属（Canis）中的使用情况，在 Web of Science 和 Scopus 中搜索标题中的“dog*”、“Canis”、“dingo*”、“wolf”或“wolves”以及主题中的“unsolvable task”或“impossible task”。我们在这项综述中纳入了 35 项研究，并讨论了它们不同的方法和代理，如不同的仪器、可解决尝试的次数以及“回头看”的不同解释，指出它们如何影响结果并阻碍比较。最后，我们使用当前的数据来提出策略，以统一使用这个重要的范例，包括可能行为及其解释的行为图谱以及未来研究的预定义方法学方面。
