Shajid Pyari Muhzina, Vékony Kata, Uccheddu Stefania, Pongrácz Péter
Department of Ethology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem-Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter Sétány 1/c, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Comparative Ethology Research Group, MTA-ELTE Magyar Tudományos Akadémia-Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Pázmány Péter Sétány 1/c, 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Dec 21;13(1):32. doi: 10.3390/ani13010032.
We tested companion cats and dogs in similar indoor conditions using identical procedures in the classic detour task around a V-shaped transparent wire-mesh fence. Besides the control group, we used two types of laser light-pointing demonstration (moving around the fence, or pointing straight at the reward). We found that dogs reached the food reward faster than cats; across consecutive trials, only the dogs showed improvement in their speed and dogs continued to use the same side for detouring after a preceding successful attempt, while cats chose the side for detouring irrespective of their previous successful trials. In addition, 'demonstrating' a detour with the laser did not influence the speed or direction of the detour of the subjects; and dogs looked back to their owner more frequently than the cats did. We discuss the possibility that for dogs, detouring along a transparent obstacle represents a more problematic task than for cats; therefore, dogs strongly rely on their previous experiences. This is the first time that cats were successfully tested in this detour paradigm in direct comparison with dogs. The results are relevant from the aspect of testing cognitive performance in companion cats, which are known to be notoriously reluctant to engage with novel experimental situations.
我们在类似的室内条件下，使用相同的程序，对宠物猫和狗进行了经典的绕过V形透明铁丝网围栏的迂回任务测试。除了对照组，我们使用了两种类型的激光光点演示（围绕围栏移动，或直接指向奖励）。我们发现狗比猫更快地获得食物奖励；在连续试验中，只有狗的速度有所提高，并且狗在前一次成功尝试后继续使用同一侧进行迂回，而猫则无论之前的成功试验如何都选择迂回的一侧。此外，用激光“演示”迂回并不会影响受试者迂回的速度或方向；而且狗比猫更频繁地回头看它们的主人。我们讨论了这样一种可能性，即对于狗来说，沿着透明障碍物迂回比对于猫来说是一项更具挑战性的任务；因此，狗强烈依赖它们以前的经验。这是首次在这种迂回范式中对猫与狗进行直接比较并成功测试。这些结果对于测试宠物猫的认知能力具有重要意义，因为众所周知，宠物猫极其不愿意参与新的实验情境。
