Some aspects of solving complex tasks by domesticated silver foxes in standard and experimentally enriched environments

Abstract

The study was conducted at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences using a group of domesticated foxes. The animals exhibit high excitability, which distorts the results of research on their cognitive activity. A series of tests was performed to determine how acquired experience alters the results of solving tasks offered to fox pups in a complex experimental environment. The performance in solving complex tasks was compared between two groups of domesticated silver foxes: those raised in a standard environment (the control group) and those raised in an enriched environment (experimental group). The animals in the second group were given tasks while the environment in which they were tested was gradually made more complex. The increasing complexity of the environment in which the fox pups operate leads to their integrated perception of it. Foxes raised in an impoverished environment tend to isolate individual components of the stimulus situation, demonstrating responses similar to releaser-induced behaviors. The exploration of open spaces was similar in animals from both studied groups, with visual orientation predominatin. Foxes from the control group exhibited significantly greater neophobia towards any space that is not fully visible. Concurrent emotional reactions during the solving of complex tasks were more pronounced in the control group pups. Despite the complex dynamics of the recorded emotionality markers, foxes raised in an enriched environment maintained a more pronounced exploratory motivation when solving tasks. Nevertheless, the results for approximately half of the recorded parameters showed no significant differences between the animals of the two studied groups, which is a consequence of the ongoing domestication process.