Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

Abstract

1 Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problem-2 solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs' 3 greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. 4However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, motor 5 diversity and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better 6 understand what drives dogs' and wolves' different problem-solving performance, it is essential to 7 test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with 8 two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these 9 species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing 10 situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start, which eliminated the 11 possibility that specific manipulative behaviours were reinforced. This allowed us to measure both 12 persistence and motor diversity more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be 13 more persistent than dogs. We also found motor diversity to be linked to persistence and persistence 14 to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two 15 tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive 16 the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Because correlates of problem-solving 17 success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and motor diversity are influenced by species' ecology, our 18 results support the social ecology hypothesis that postulates that the different ecological niches of the 19 two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human 20 refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) 21at least partly shaped their behaviours. 22 Introduction 23Animals need to solve various ecological and social problems to survive. Studies across taxa have 24 found problem-solving success to depend on several psychological propensities (also referred to as 25 the "correlates of problem-solving success"). These include neophobia (the fear of new situations or 26 objects), motor diversity and flexibility (the repertoire of problem-solving behaviours an animal 27 displays, and its ability to find novel solutions to already known problems, or use known solutions to 28 solve novel problems) and, most importantly, persistence (Lefebvre, Reader & Sol, 2004; Biondi, Bó 29 & Vassallo, 2010;Hiestand, 2011;Cole, Cram & Quinn, 2011;Morand-Ferron et al., 2011; Thornton 30 & Samson, 2012;Benson-Amram & Holekamp, 2012;Griffin & Guez, 2014;Moretti et al., 2015; 31 Griffin & Diquelou, 2015;Huebner & Fichtel, 2015;Udell, 2015;Borrego & Gaines, 2016) (defined 32 as task directed motivation and quantified as the amount of time an animal sp...

Assistance and Therapy Dogs Are Better Problem Solvers Than Both Trained and Untrained Family Dogs

“…This hypothesis has been supported by several comparative studies in which dogs privileged the use of social strategies such as gazing to the human face, while wolves spent more time manipulating an apparatus and were thus more successful in solving the problem (10,11). However, other authors have highlighted that this discrepancy in the performance of the two species may not be (only) due to differences in their ability to solve physical problems, but other factors, such as motivation and persistence (12)(13)(14), and vague definitions (15). Persistence is a reliable predictor of problem-solving ability, and might be linked to trial and error learning strategies (16).…”

Social behavior in dog puppies: Breed differences and the effect of rearing conditions

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