Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) and the radial arm maze: Spatial memory and serial position effects.

Abstract

The present study investigated spatial memory in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) through the use of a radial arm maze. The study consisted of a total of three separate experiments. In the first two experiments, the ability of the dogs to successfully remember previously unentered arms was evaluated. The third experiment was similar to the first two, but also examined the nature of the serial position effect. Performance in all three experiments was better than expected solely by random choices. Dogs showed a much better memory for spatial locations presented earlier in a spatial list compared with those presented in the middle. Based on the present results, we suggest that the radial arm maze assesses canine spatial memory and that dogs show a primacy effect.

The World from a Dog’s Point of View

“…Milgram et al, 1994;Tapp, Siwak, Estrada, Holowachuk, et al, 2003), making sure all containers have come in contact with the food reward (e.g. Fujita et al, 2012) or they have wiped down indoor paths in between trials to limit the use of odor cues from the initial search (Craig et al, 2012). Other experimenters have removed reward scent cues altogether by developing protocols so that the food is only delivered to the dog after it has selected a container (e.g.…”

“…In both of these contexts the ability to search multiple sites efficiently is advantageous. Search order strategies of dogs have also recently been tested using an eight-arm radial maze, and while dogs performed better than chance at remembering previously searched reward locations, dogs were found to be less efficient at locating rewards in a maze relative to searching multiple-reward locations in an open field (Craig et al, 2012;. search and rescue, odor detection).…”

“…search and rescue, odor detection). The use of stereotyped search strategies may have also contributed to the improved performance over trials recorded in the initial phases of the radial arm maze studies (Craig et al, 2012;. Fabrigoule and Sagave (1992) investigated the ability of dogs to navigate six radially distributed food sites within an open space, and analyzed each dog's search strategy across trials.…”

“…Fabrigoule and Sagave (1992) investigated the ability of dogs to navigate six radially distributed food sites within an open space, and analyzed each dog's search strategy across trials. In the 8-arm radial maze studies, similar attempts were made to see whether the subject dogs could use prior experience to efficiently search four baited arms without also searching the four unbaited arms, but this procedure resulted in more mixed performances (Craig et al, 2012;. This overall efficient performance was despite large individual differences in each dog's search-order strategy.…”

The Influence of Sex and Temperament on Spatial Learning in Domestic Dogs

“…Specifically, six dogs made 83% mean correct arm choices, which is low when compared to other species (e.g., rats). However, according to Craig et al (2012), dogs that completed the radial arm maze task had higher performance due to fewer trials per day, which suggests that spatial learning may vary due to trial length. Expanding on the finding that trial length may be important, researchers gave dogs training trials in which they varied the inter-trial interval (ITI) in a modified combination of the open-field and radial arm maze that assessed learning on a mass trial paradigm, intermediate trial paradigm, and long-delay trial paradigm (Showalter, Bashaw, Solomon, & Polewan, 2015).…”