Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task

Gibson, Brett M.; Shettleworth, Sara J.

doi:10.3758/bf03195977

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The findings suggest that learning based on cues from the platform overshadowed extramaze cues that could also be used to locate the goal. Similar evidence for competition also has been reported between cues utilized by separate spatial systems (Gibson & Shettleworth, 2003, 2005.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) encode the shape of an array of discrete objects.

Gibson

Wilks

Kelly

2007

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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To navigate efficiently, a traveler must establish a heading using a frame of reference. A large body of evidence has indicated that humans and a variety of nonhuman animals utilize the geometry, or shape, of enclosed spaces as a frame of reference to determine their heading. An important and yet unresolved question is whether shape information from arrays of discrete objects and enclosed environments are represented, and utilized, in the same way. In the present study, rats were presented with a reference memory task in which they had to find water that was hidden in 1 of 4 discrete and unique objects placed at the vertices of a rectangle. The results indicate that rats could utilize both feature and geometry cues to locate the hidden goal. The rats' performance declined during transformation tests using a triangular array, indicating that the rats may have encoded the primary axis of the object array, rather than local cues, to direct their search.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) encode the shape of an array of discrete objects.

Gibson

Wilks

Kelly

2007

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…With repeated training, the mice learned that the polystyrene cone was the only cue that reliably predicted the escape hole location, and performance improved. Similar learning impairments resulting from a bias toward distal spatial cues over proximal cues have been reported on other tasks, such as the eight-arm radial maze, Morris water maze, and a food-finding task in a large arena (Kraemer et al 1983;Chamizo et al 1985;March et al 1992;McDonald and White 1994;Gibson and Shettleworth 2003). A potential problem with this interpretation is that one would predict more rapid learning in the CVC group, given the absence of distal room cues and the apparent increased salience of the discrete proximal cue.…”

Section: Org Downloaded Frommentioning

confidence: 69%

Spatial and nonspatial escape strategies in the Barnes maze

Harrison¹,

Reiserer²,

Tomarken³

et al. 2006

Learn. Mem.

198

167

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The Barnes maze is a spatial memory task that requires subjects to learn the position of a hole that can be used to escape the brightly lit, open surface of the maze. Two experiments assessed the relative importance of spatial (extra-maze) versus proximal visible cues in solving the maze. In Experiment 1, four groups of mice were trained either with or without a discrete visible cue marking the location of the escape hole, which was either in a fixed or variable location across trials. In Experiment 2, all mice were trained with the discrete visible cue marking the target hole location. Two groups were identical to the cued-target groups from Experiment 1, with either fixed or variable escape locations. For these mice, the discrete cue either was the sole predictor of the target location or was perfectly confounded with the spatial extra-maze cues. The third group also used a cued variable target, but a curtain was drawn around the maze to prevent the use of spatial cues to guide navigation. Probe trials with all escape holes blocked were conducted to dissociate the use of spatial and discrete proximal cues. We conclude that the Barnes maze can be solved efficiently using spatial, visual cue, or serial-search strategies. However, mice showed a strong preference for using the distal room cues, even when a discrete visible cue clearly marked the escape location. Importantly, these data show that the cued-target control version of the Barnes maze as typically conducted does not dissociate spatial from nonspatial abilities.

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“…Male rats preferentially use place cues and largely ignore markers in finding food rewards even when markers are equally reliable and informative (Gibson and Shettleworth, 2003). In the natural environment, spatial or geometric cues may be more consistent and reliable than the presence of a single given landmark, resulting in the evolution of a preference to use spatial cues instead of landmarks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, this is not the first study to demonstrate a strong tendency for animals to preferentially use geometric cues and fail to use landmark cues. Wild capuchins easily learned the spatial locations of platforms holding bananas but had difficulty when yellow markers but not consistent location identified the placement of the bananas (Garber and Paciulli, 1997).Male rats preferentially use place cues and largely ignore markers in finding food rewards even when markers are equally reliable and informative (Gibson and Shettleworth, 2003). In the natural environment, spatial or geometric cues may be more consistent and reliable than the presence of a single given landmark, resulting in the evolution of a preference to use spatial cues instead of landmarks.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive performance in rhesus monkeys varies by sex and prenatal androgen exposure

Herman

Wallen

2007

Hormones and Behavior

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Men and women differ on performance and strategy on several spatial tasks. Rodents display similar sex differences, and manipulations of early hormone exposure alter the direction of these differences. However, most cognitive testing of nonhuman primates has utilized sample sizes too small to investigate sexually-differentiated behaviors. This study presents an investigation of sex differences and the effects of prenatal androgen on spatial memory and strategy use in rhesus monkeys. Monkeys prenatally exposed to vehicle, testosterone, or the androgen receptor blocker flutamide performed a search task in which 5 of 12 goal boxes contained food rewards. Spatial consistency and the presence of local landmarks were varied. Performance when both spatial and marker cues were available did not differ by sex or prenatal treatment. Contrary to predictions, females easily solved the task when local markers were removed, and their performance outscored males. Although eliminating spatial consistency and requiring subjects to use local markers impaired performance by all monkeys, females continued to locate correct goal boxes at higher than chance levels and scored better than males. Blocking prenatal androgen exposure in males improved use of local markers. These findings suggest that the tendency to attend to landmarks and to use them in solving spatial problems is typical of females across many species, including rodents, humans, and rhesus monkeys. In rhesus monkeys and rodents, developmental androgen eliminates this specialization. However, these results are the only known example of better performance of females than males when salient markers are removed.Keywords rhesus monkey; spatial cognition; sex differences; testosterone; flutamide; prenatal; landmarks On a variety of spatially-demanding tasks, men outperform women. Tests of mental rotation, the ability to imagine the rotation of a two-or three-dimensional object rapidly, provide the largest and most reliable sex differences (Linn and Petersen, 1985), but performance differences exist in other spatial abilities also, including the ability to quickly and accurately learn a described route (Galea and Kimura, 1993;Ward et al., 1986). Not only do differences exist in overall performance, but men and women tend to use different strategies in maplearning and navigation. Men use cardinal directions and mileage estimates more, whereas women rely upon landmarks more (Galea and Kimura, 1993;Lawton, 1994Lawton, , 1996Saucier et al., 2002;Ward et al., 1986). Choice of strategy may be the important difference as route 1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Department of Psychology Emory University 532 N. Kilgo Circle Atlanta, Georgia 30322 E-mail: rebecca.herman@gmail.com Phone: 678-637-1357 Fax: 404-727-0372 Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and ...

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Competition among spatial cues in a naturalistic food-carrying task

Cited by 11 publications

References 38 publications

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) encode the shape of an array of discrete objects.

Rats (Rattus norvegicus) encode the shape of an array of discrete objects.

Spatial and nonspatial escape strategies in the Barnes maze

Cognitive performance in rhesus monkeys varies by sex and prenatal androgen exposure

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