Date of Award
Summer 8-1-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Joshua Plotnik
Second Advisor
Dr. Sydney Hope
Academic Program Adviser
Dr. Joshua Plotnik
Abstract
Inhibitory control is defined as the ability to suppress a prepotent motor response in favor of a more efficient or advantageous behavior, and is an important core executive function. Although elephants are known to behave flexibly and display other executive functions, there is currently little information available on if, and to what extent, they display inhibitory control. We tested 16 captive Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) (N = 8 males, 8 females) ranging in age from 4-years-old to 60-years-old at the National Elephant Institute in Thailand using a classic detour paradigm adapted to be more ecologically salient for them through the addition of perforations in the apparatus for olfactory cues. Elephants first learned how to detour their trunk around an opaque box to obtain a food reward. Then, they needed to maintain the beneficial detour behavior when the box was switched to a transparent box with perforations on the front, revealing both visual and olfactory cues of the food. If they maintained the beneficial detouring behavior, they would effectively be resisting the urge to reach straight through the transparent barrier, and thus exhibit motor inhibition. We found that elephants did not change their detouring behavior when facing both the opaque and transparent boxes, suggesting they do display a high capacity for inhibitory control. However, we did find that older elephants spent more time completing the task than the younger elephants, possibly suggesting that elephants experience some age-related cognitive changes. This study is important for furthering our understanding of cognitive flexibility in elephants, as well as for designing experiments that are applicable across evolutionarily different species.
Recommended Citation
Schmitt, Gillian, "Inhibitory Control in Asian Elephants" (2025). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/1405
