Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 23;15(1):26695.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-11192-7.

Side bias behaviour in dogs (Canis familiaris) is influenced by task complexity

Anna Kis  1   2 , Hannah Roper  3 , Henrietta Bolló  3   4 , Antónia Balogh  3   5   6 , Anna Gergely  3   7 , József Topál  3   7
Affiliations

Side bias behaviour in dogs (Canis familiaris) is influenced by task complexity

Anna Kis et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Side bias is often reported in canine cognition experiments when dogs' behaviour is tested in two-way choice tasks. Recently it has been proposed that side bias, which remains consistent over time and across different situations, may parallel a human psychiatric condition known as visual neglect. Here we tested an additional factor that could contribute to the development of side bias behaviour in dogs: task complexity. Subjects were tested in a series of two-way choice tasks of varying difficulty and the proportion of subjects showing side bias was compared across these tasks. Results showed that dogs were more likely to develop side bias in more complex situations, such as the food preference task, or in more unusual tasks, such as elbow pointing, compared to simpler tasks like sustained pointing. This suggests that, as expected, task complexity contributes to dogs' side bias, with side preference potentially being at least partly triggered by more challenging tasks that yield decreased reward.

Keywords: Animal model; Choice task; Side bias; Task complexity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Dogs’ side preference score across the six tasks (median, quartiles and whiskers). **: p < 0.01, *: p < 0.05, #: p < 0.1.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Number of dogs with a 100% side preference in (1) both the spontaneous and the cued task, either (2) the spontaneous or (3) the cued task only, and (4) neither of the tasks. Data are shown separately for the three easy cued tasks (sustained pointing, momentary blocked pointing, momentary random pointing) and the two hard cued tasks (elbow pointing, food preference). A dog is considered to show side preference in the easy or hard cued category if it displayed a 6/6 biased choice in any task within that category.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Number of right-side choices as a function of the different two-way choice tasks for each individual subject. Dashed line depicts 50% chance level. 6/6 and 0/6 scores are individually significant (binomial test, p < 0.05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Miklósi, Á. & Topál, J. What does it take to become ‘best friends’? Evolutionary changes in canine social competence. Trends Cogn. Sci.17(6), 287–294 (2013). - PubMed
    1. Hare, B. & Tomasello, M. Human-like social skills in dogs?. Trends Cogn. Sci.9(9), 439–444 (2005). - PubMed
    1. Soproni, K., Miklósi, Á., Topál, J. & Csányi, V. Dogs’ (Canisfamiliaris) responsiveness to human pointing gestures. J. Comp. Psychol.116(1), 27–34 (2002). - PubMed
    1. Bräuer, J., Kaminski, J., Riedel, J., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. Making inferences about the location of hidden food: Social dog, causal ape. J. Comp. Psychol.120(1), 38–47 (2006). - PubMed
    1. Capitain, S., Cimarelli, G., Blenkuš, U., Range, F. & Marshall-Pescini, S. Street-wise dog testing: Feasibility and reliability of a behavioural test battery for free-ranging dogs in their natural habitat. PLoS ONE19(3), e0296509 (2024). - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources