Search behavior in cats and do

             The researchers predicted that cats would only succeed in one type of the transpositions because of the deactivation of their working memory from the objects initial hiding place if there is direct evidence that the cube moved. The predictions for the dogs were slightly different though. They predicted that the dogs could be successful in all the types of transpositions because they believed that the working memory in dogs could be reset not only by direct cues but also by indirect cues. Researchers also predicted that cats and dogs may not do well in any of the transposition situations because, as some have suggested, they may have too small of an attentional capacity to handle all the switching and moving of the screens.
             What the researchers actually found out was slightly different that their earlier predictions. In cats they found that it did not really matter whether the screens were similar or dissimilar. They also found out that cats had a success rate in all the areas, but in some cases it was only about a 30% -40% success rate. The cats had the highest success rate in the single transposition, with an 80%-90% success rate, which almost fell in line with their predictions for the cats. In dogs it did not matter too much whether the screens were similar or dissimilar. The dogs did as well as the cats in the single transposition, substitution transposition, and the switch transposition, but did considerably better in all the other transpositions. Although it was slight, in some cases the dogs did use visual cues from the dissimilar screens, which shows that dogs can use indirect visual cues at times, unlike cats.
             BEHAVIORISTIC INTERPRETATION.
             If you look at this experiment's results behavioristically it makes perfect sense that the animals would do poorly. They were trained to respond to the cube, yes, but they were not specifically trained to search for the cube. When being trained to respond to the cube, the animals were rewarded with a piece of food when they successfully walked to the cube and touched it with their paw.