Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorvan Horik, JO
dc.contributor.authorLangley, EJG
dc.contributor.authorWhiteside, MA
dc.contributor.authorLaker, PR
dc.contributor.authorBeardsworth, CE
dc.contributor.authorMadden, JR
dc.date.accessioned2018-04-20T08:15:46Z
dc.date.issued2018-03-28
dc.description.abstractTransparent Cylinder and Barrier tasks are used to purportedly assess inhibitory control in a variety of animals. However, we suspect that performances on these detour tasks are influenced by non-cognitive traits, which may result in inaccurate assays of inhibitory control. We therefore reared pheasants under standardized conditions and presented each bird with two sets of similar tasks commonly used to measure inhibitory control. We recorded the number of times subjects incorrectly attempted to access a reward through transparent barriers, and their latencies to solve each task. Such measures are commonly used to infer the differential expression of inhibitory control. We found little evidence that their performances were consistent across the two different Putative Inhibitory Control Tasks (PICTs). Improvements in performance across trials showed that pheasants learned the affordances of each specific task. Critically, prior experience of transparent tasks, either Barrier or Cylinder, also improved subsequent inhibitory control performance on a novel task, suggesting that they also learned the general properties of transparent obstacles. Individual measures of persistence, assayed in a third task, were positively related to their frequency of incorrect attempts to solve the transparent inhibitory control tasks. Neophobia, Sex and Body Condition had no influence on individual performance. Contrary to previous studies of primates, pheasants with poor performance on PICTs had a wider dietary breadth assayed using a free-choice task. Our results demonstrate that in systems or taxa where prior experience and differences in development cannot be accounted for, individual differences in performance on commonly used detour-dependent PICTS may reveal more about an individual's prior experience of transparent objects, or their motivation to acquire food, than providing a reliable measure of their inhibitory control.en_GB
dc.description.sponsorshipJ.R.M., M.A.W. and J.O.v.H. were funded by an ERC consolidator grant (616474).en_GB
dc.identifier.citationVol. 285 (1875)en_GB
dc.identifier.doi10.1098/rspb.2018.0150
dc.identifier.otherrspb.2018.0150
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10871/32536
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherRoyal Societyen_GB
dc.relation.urlhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29593115en_GB
dc.rights© 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.en_GB
dc.subjectBarrier tasken_GB
dc.subjectCylinder tasken_GB
dc.subjectcognitionen_GB
dc.subjectexecutive controlen_GB
dc.subjectexecutive functionen_GB
dc.titleDo detour tasks provide accurate assays of inhibitory control?en_GB
dc.typeArticleen_GB
dc.date.available2018-04-20T08:15:46Z
exeter.place-of-publicationEnglanden_GB
dc.descriptionThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Royal Society via the DOI in this record.en_GB
dc.identifier.journalProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciencesen_GB


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record