Evidence for Win-Stay-Lose-Shift in Puppies and Adult Dogs

Molly Byrne; Emily E. Bray; Evan L. MacLean; Angie M. Johnston

Evidence for Win-Stay-Lose-Shift in Puppies and Adult Dogs

Molly Byrne, Emily E. Bray, Evan L. MacLean, Angie M. Johnston

Anthropology, School of

Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper › peer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many organisms encounter situations where they lack information required to successfully exploit a resource. One stable strategy that may be particularly useful is a win-stay-lose-shift strategy, in which an individual continues to perform a behavior that has proven fruitful in the recent past or otherwise shifts to a new behavior. Here we investigate whether domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use a win-stay-lose-shift strategy utilizing data from 326 puppies and 323 adult dogs on a repeated object-choice task. We found a significant effect of previous-trial success on dogs' subsequent search patterns. Specifically, dogs were more likely to shift search locations if they were unsuccessful on the previous trial. These findings suggest that puppies and adult dogs win-stay-lose-shift.

Original language	English (US)
Pages	2884-2889
Number of pages	6
State	Published - 2020
Event	42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Developing a Mind: Learning in Humans, Animals, and Machines, CogSci 2020 - Virtual, Online Duration: Jul 29 2020 → Aug 1 2020

Conference

Conference	42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Developing a Mind: Learning in Humans, Animals, and Machines, CogSci 2020
City	Virtual, Online
Period	7/29/20 → 8/1/20

Keywords

dogs
evolution
strategies
win-stay-lose-shift

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science Applications
Human-Computer Interaction
Cognitive Neuroscience

Cite this

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title = "Evidence for Win-Stay-Lose-Shift in Puppies and Adult Dogs",

abstract = "Many organisms encounter situations where they lack information required to successfully exploit a resource. One stable strategy that may be particularly useful is a win-stay-lose-shift strategy, in which an individual continues to perform a behavior that has proven fruitful in the recent past or otherwise shifts to a new behavior. Here we investigate whether domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use a win-stay-lose-shift strategy utilizing data from 326 puppies and 323 adult dogs on a repeated object-choice task. We found a significant effect of previous-trial success on dogs' subsequent search patterns. Specifically, dogs were more likely to shift search locations if they were unsuccessful on the previous trial. These findings suggest that puppies and adult dogs win-stay-lose-shift.",

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author = "Molly Byrne and Bray, {Emily E.} and MacLean, {Evan L.} and Johnston, {Angie M.}",

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AU - Bray, Emily E.

AU - MacLean, Evan L.

AU - Johnston, Angie M.

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AB - Many organisms encounter situations where they lack information required to successfully exploit a resource. One stable strategy that may be particularly useful is a win-stay-lose-shift strategy, in which an individual continues to perform a behavior that has proven fruitful in the recent past or otherwise shifts to a new behavior. Here we investigate whether domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) use a win-stay-lose-shift strategy utilizing data from 326 puppies and 323 adult dogs on a repeated object-choice task. We found a significant effect of previous-trial success on dogs' subsequent search patterns. Specifically, dogs were more likely to shift search locations if they were unsuccessful on the previous trial. These findings suggest that puppies and adult dogs win-stay-lose-shift.

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Evidence for Win-Stay-Lose-Shift in Puppies and Adult Dogs

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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