Is Inhibitory Control a Unitary Construct? Contributions of Comparative Psychology with Domestic Dogs

Inhibitory control, the opposite of impulsivity, is the ability to control preponderant but counterproductive behaviors. Dogs are a suitable model to investigate it specifically regarding the behavioral aspects. There are two positions in the literature: one states that this capacity is a multidimensional construct and the other perspective considers it as a unitary concept. A large number of works indicating the absence of associations between various measures of inhibitory control provide evidence for the first perspective. Some studies that find correlations between different tests support the second. The objective was to review studies on inhibitory control in dogs that administer two or more measures of this capacity to the same subjects. It was carried out an Electronic Search and was applied the Snowball method. The results yielded 15 articles. Similar to that discovered in humans, the majority of correlations were no significant (83%, 44 of 53). Therefore, considering these data from the multi-dimensional standpoint, inhibitory control in dogs could be multi-factorial. Evidence is scarce and it is not yet possible to arrive at definitive conclusions.