Distraction, learning and performance in dogs

Distractions that lead to performance deficits in working dogs can be life-threatening to the dog, its handler, and others. To reduce the impact of extraneous stimuli, distractors that are likely to occur in the working environment can be incorporated into training. Yet, the impact that distraction training has on learning efficacy remains unclear. Similarly, whether dogs are able to generalise from their trained distractors to novel stimuli that they may face whilst working is unknown. Here, we investigated how training with an acoustic distractor impacts dogs’ capacity to learn and later perform a task in the presence of novel stimuli that vary in similarity to the trained distractor (a similar acoustic and a dissimilar light distractor). We found that dogs trained with a distractor learned the task less efficiently than dogs trained in silence, and did not perform the task more efficiently when subsequently tested in the presence of the novel sound or light distractors. Interestingly, the similar auditory stimulus impaired task performance more than the dissimilar light stimulus in dogs from both training conditions. While dogs trained with the acoustic distractor habituated faster to the novel sound distractor than dogs trained without a distractor, this trend was not significant. Our findings highlight potentially negative effects of distraction training on learning, and provide limited support that it improves task performance in dynamic working environments.对工作犬造成作业表现缺陷的干扰因素，可能对犬只、训导员及其他相关人员构成生命威胁。为降低无关刺激带来的负面影响，可将工作环境中大概率出现的干扰物纳入训练体系。然而，干扰物训练对学习效能的具体影响仍不明朗。同样，犬只能否将其在训练中接触的干扰物泛化至工作场景中可能遭遇的新型刺激，目前仍未可知。本研究旨在探究，使用听觉干扰物开展的训练，会如何影响犬只的学习能力，以及后续在与训练用干扰物存在不同相似度的新型刺激（即相似听觉刺激与相异视觉刺激）存在下完成任务的表现。研究结果显示，接受过干扰物训练的犬只，其任务学习效率低于在无干扰环境下受训的犬只；且后续在新型听觉或视觉干扰物存在的环境中接受测试时，它们的任务完成效率并未得到提升。值得注意的是，在两个训练组别中，相似听觉刺激对任务表现的损害程度均高于相异视觉刺激。尽管接受听觉干扰物训练的犬只，相较于未接受干扰物训练的个体，对新型听觉干扰物的习惯化速度更快，但这一趋势并未达到统计学显著性。本研究结果揭示了干扰物训练对学习过程可能存在的负面影响，且仅能为其在动态工作环境中提升任务表现这一观点提供有限的佐证。