Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species
Response inhibition (RI), or the stopping of actions, is considered a key component of flexible and adaptive behaviour. Across fields, RI is often treated as a unitary cognitive mechanism. However, we propose that RI consists of a chain of cognitive processes, including the detection of a stimulus,...
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The Royal Society
2025-06-01
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| Online Access: | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250316 |
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| author | Anneleen Dewulf Clara Garcia-Co Wendt Müller Joah Robert Madden An Martel Luc Lens Frederick Verbruggen |
| author_facet | Anneleen Dewulf Clara Garcia-Co Wendt Müller Joah Robert Madden An Martel Luc Lens Frederick Verbruggen |
| author_sort | Anneleen Dewulf |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Response inhibition (RI), or the stopping of actions, is considered a key component of flexible and adaptive behaviour. Across fields, RI is often treated as a unitary cognitive mechanism. However, we propose that RI consists of a chain of cognitive processes, including the detection of a stimulus, the selection of an appropriate behaviour (go or stop) and the implementation of it (execution or inhibition of a motor response). From this, we propose that individual variation in RI can arise at the early signal detection stage. This idea was tested in a detour barrier task, which is one of the most popular tools to study RI in non-human animals. The role of signal detection in detour tasks has been largely neglected, with a few notable exceptions. We therefore partially replicated two previous studies that manipulated the perceptual characteristics of the barrier, while addressing some conceptual and methodological shortcomings of the original work. Specifically, we compared how detour performance of four bird species (i.e. white leghorn chickens, Japanese quails, herring gulls and domestic canaries) is differently influenced by vertical-bar (VB) and horizontal-bar (HB) barriers. In contrast to the previous work, performance on the detour task did not improve when the perceptual characteristics of the barrier matched the ecological niche of the species. However, all species showed some level of learning, as evidenced by shorter detour latencies (except in herring gulls) and fewer persisting attempts. These findings highlight the need for replication studies and emphasize the importance of improving methodological and conceptual design factors to further investigate the underlying mechanisms of RI in animals. Preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qvxgh (date of in-principle acceptance: 20/03/2023). |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c26fb8f55eb04a6d93b7ab5827a369ee |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2054-5703 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | The Royal Society |
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| series | Royal Society Open Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-c26fb8f55eb04a6d93b7ab5827a369ee2025-08-20T03:23:48ZengThe Royal SocietyRoyal Society Open Science2054-57032025-06-0112610.1098/rsos.250316Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird speciesAnneleen Dewulf0Clara Garcia-Co1Wendt Müller2Joah Robert Madden3An Martel4Luc Lens5Frederick Verbruggen6Centre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumCentre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumDepartment of Biology, Behavioural Ecology and Eco-Physiology Group, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, BelgiumCentre for Research in Animal Behaviour, Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UKDepartment of Pathobiology, Pharmacology and Zoological Medicine, Wildlife Health, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumCentre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumCentre for Research on Ecology, Cognition and Behaviour of Birds, Ghent University, Ghent, BelgiumResponse inhibition (RI), or the stopping of actions, is considered a key component of flexible and adaptive behaviour. Across fields, RI is often treated as a unitary cognitive mechanism. However, we propose that RI consists of a chain of cognitive processes, including the detection of a stimulus, the selection of an appropriate behaviour (go or stop) and the implementation of it (execution or inhibition of a motor response). From this, we propose that individual variation in RI can arise at the early signal detection stage. This idea was tested in a detour barrier task, which is one of the most popular tools to study RI in non-human animals. The role of signal detection in detour tasks has been largely neglected, with a few notable exceptions. We therefore partially replicated two previous studies that manipulated the perceptual characteristics of the barrier, while addressing some conceptual and methodological shortcomings of the original work. Specifically, we compared how detour performance of four bird species (i.e. white leghorn chickens, Japanese quails, herring gulls and domestic canaries) is differently influenced by vertical-bar (VB) and horizontal-bar (HB) barriers. In contrast to the previous work, performance on the detour task did not improve when the perceptual characteristics of the barrier matched the ecological niche of the species. However, all species showed some level of learning, as evidenced by shorter detour latencies (except in herring gulls) and fewer persisting attempts. These findings highlight the need for replication studies and emphasize the importance of improving methodological and conceptual design factors to further investigate the underlying mechanisms of RI in animals. Preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/qvxgh (date of in-principle acceptance: 20/03/2023).https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250316response inhibitionstop-signal detectioncomparative approachbirdsdetour |
| spellingShingle | Anneleen Dewulf Clara Garcia-Co Wendt Müller Joah Robert Madden An Martel Luc Lens Frederick Verbruggen Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species Royal Society Open Science response inhibition stop-signal detection comparative approach birds detour |
| title | Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species |
| title_full | Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species |
| title_fullStr | Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species |
| title_full_unstemmed | Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species |
| title_short | Do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance? A comparison of four bird species |
| title_sort | do ecological valid stop signals aid detour performance a comparison of four bird species |
| topic | response inhibition stop-signal detection comparative approach birds detour |
| url | https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.250316 |
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