Playful activity post-learning improves training performance in Labrador Retriever dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)

摘要

Situations that are emotional and arousing have an effect on cognitive performance. It is thought that beta adrenergicudactivation and the release of stress hormones enhance memory consolidation and lead to an increase inudmemorability of emotional events. This beneficial effect has been shown in humans, non-human primates andudrodents. Techniqueswhich could enhancememory for learning specific taskswould be highly valuable, especiallyudin dogs, which are extensively trained to aid humans.udA pseudo-randomized, counterbalanced, between subject study designs was utilised and 16 Labrador Retrieversudranging from 1 to 9 years of agewere trained in a 2-choice discrimination paradigm. After task acquisition, eitheruda playful activity intervention (N= 8) or a resting period (N= 8) took place, lasting for 30 min.udA range of factors including age, sex, training experience and trials to criterion on each day was subjected to audmultiple factor/covariate General Linear Model analysis. The results show that playful activity post-learning improvedudtraining performance evidenced by fewer trials needed to re-learn the task 24 h after initial acquisitionud(playful activity group: mean number of trials 26, SD 6; resting group: mean number of trials 43, SD 19, effectudsize 1.2). Average heart rate, as a measure of arousal, during the interventionwas significantly higher in the playfuludactivity group (143 beats/min, SD 16) versus the resting group (86 beats/min, SD 19, P b 0.001). Salivary cortisoluddid not significantly differ between groups during training, however a significant decrease (T:−4.1 P b 0.01)udwas seen after the playful activity.udTo our knowledge this is the first evidence that posttraining activity may influence training performance in dogs.