Differences in problem-solving between canid populations: Do domestication and lifetime experience affect persistence?

Abstract

Past research has suggested that a variety of factors, phylogenetic and ontogenetic, play a role in how canines behave during problem-solving tasks and the degree to which the presence of a human influences their problem-solving behaviour. While comparisons between socialized wolves and domestic dogs have commonly been used to tease apart these predictive factors, in many cases a single dog population, often pets, have been used for these comparisons. Less is understood about how different populations of dogs may behave when compared with wolves, or with each other, during an independent problem-solving task. This experiment compared the independent persistence of four populations of canines (two groups of pet domestic dogs, a group of free-ranging domestic dogs, and human-socialized wolves) on an independent problem-solving task in the presence of an on looking human. Results showed that wolves persisted the most at the task while free-ranging dogs persisted the least. Free-ranging dogs gazed at the human experimenter for the longest durations during the task. While further research is needed to understand why these differences exist, this study demonstrates that dogs, even those living outside human homes as scavengers, show comparatively low levels of persistence when confronted with a solvable task in the presence of a human as well as significantly greater duration of human-directed gaze when compared with wolves.

Structural variants in genes associated with human Williams-Beuren syndrome underlie stereotypical hypersociability in domestic dogs

“…We evaluated the human-directed sociability of 18 domestic dogs and 10 captive human-socialized gray wolves using standard sociability ( 7 , 26 ) and problem-solving tasks ( 2 , 8 , 27 ) commonly used to assess human-directed sociability in canines. Three sociability metrics were constructed to assess behaviors indicative of WBS ( 22 ): attentional bias to social stimuli (ABS), hypersociability (HYP), and social interest in strangers (SIS) (tables S1 and S2).…”

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

“…Performing multiple 50 problem-solving experiments over time can help understand consistency in animals' performance and 51 hence, the effect behavioural types have on the correlates of problem-solving success. 52 Dogs and their closest living ancestors, wolves (Frantz et al, 2016) differ strongly in their problem 53 solving success in various paradigms (Frank & Frank, 1982;Frank et al, 1989;Miklósi et al, 2003; 54 Udell, Dorey & Wynne, 2008;Hiestand, 2011;Range & Virányi, 2014; Marshall-Pescini, Virányi & 55 Range, 2015;Udell, 2015;Heberlein et al, 2016;Rao et al, 2017;Brubaker et al, 2017; Marshall-56 Pescini et al, 2017a,b). For instance, wolves were more task-focussed, showed more motor diversity, 57 were more persistent and were able to generalise better than dogs in a string-pulling task (Hiestand, 58 2011).…”

“…For instance, wolves were more task-focussed, showed more motor diversity, 57 were more persistent and were able to generalise better than dogs in a string-pulling task (Hiestand, 58 2011). They were faster and more successful at obtaining food from puzzle boxes (Frank & Frank, 59 1982;Udell, 2015;Rao et al, 2017;Brubaker et al, 2017) and performed better at a visual 60 discrimination task than dogs (Frank et al, 1989). These differences have partly been attributed to the 61 different ecological niches they live in (Virányi et al, 2008;Range & Virányi, 2013 Marshall-62 Pescini, Virányi & Range, 2015;Werhahn et al, 2016; Marshall-Pescini et al, 2017c,a; Brubaker et 63 al., 2017).…”

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

“…We found 539 dogs to be more consistent in their persistence (or lack thereof) and their contact latency than wolves. 540A likely explanation for this could be that selection against persistence (Hiestand, 2011) and direct 541 manipulation of the environment (Moretti et al, 2015;Brubaker et al, 2017) may have resulted in a 542 more consistent reactive-type personality. Wolves, having faced no such selection, may be more 543 variable in their behaviour.…”

“…Authors often describe dogs displaying copious amounts of 66 human directed behaviours during problem-solving experiments. There is ample evidence that when 67 confronted with a problem in the presence of a human, dogs are more likely than wolves to look 68 towards and/or interact with the human instead of engaging in the task (Miklósi et al, 2003; Udell, 69 2015;Brubaker et al, 2017). 70…”