Discrimination and Attention in Dogs

Abstract

Two dogs were trained to perform a left-right discrimination task in which depressing a treadle presented a compound visual and auditory stimulus in random order appropriate to one or the other of two distant reinforcement stations. Depression of the appropriate discrimination treadle was reinforced by water presentation. A modified correction procedure was used in training. Following acquisition, probe test trials consisting of the visual stimulus component alone, the auditory stimulus component alone, and reversed or cues-opposed compound stimulus were presented. Test trials demonstrated the visual component of the compound stimulus to have acquired discriminative control, but the cues-opposed test trials also demonstrated a low but extant degree of discriminative control exerted by the auditory stimulus component. As the compound stimulus employed here consisted of visual components differing only in location and auditory components differing only in pitch, implications for future research manipulating further these qualitative and quantitative variables were discussed.