Stimulus Control of Odorant Concentration: Pilot Study of Generalization and Discrimination of Odor Concentration in Canines.

ABSTRACT: Despite dogs' widespread use as detection systems, little is known about how dogs generalize to variations of an odorant's concentration. Further, it is unclear whether dogs can be trained to discriminate between similar concentration variations of an odorant. Four dogs were trained to an odorant (0.01 air dilution of isoamyl acetate) in an air-dilution olfactometer, and we assessed spontaneous generalization to a range of concentrations lower than the training stimulus (Generalization Test 1). Dogs generalized to odors within a 10-fold range of the training odorant. Next, we conducted discrimination training to suppress responses to concentrations lower than a concentration dogs showed initial responding towards in Generalization Test 1 (0.0025 air dilution). Dogs successfully discriminat

SUBMITTER: DeChant MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7912023 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature