How do room and apparatus cues control navigation in the Morris water task? Evidence for distinct contributions to a movement vector.

Hamilton, Derek A.; Akers, Katherine G.; Weisend, Michael P.; Sutherland, Robert J.

doi:10.1037/0097-7403.33.2.100

Cited by 83 publications

(170 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Consistent with earlier findings using an appetitive task (Skinner et al, 2003), a preference for directional responding by rats in a water task has been reported across a variety of conditions but always in a more open maze configuration with no obvious response solution (Hamilton eta!., 2008;Hamilton et a!., 2007). Thus, in the current thesis I assessed response, direction, and place trategies in a water T-maze.…”

Section: The Present Studysupporting

confidence: 70%

An assessment of response, direction and place learning by rats in a water T-maze

Whyte

Martin

Skinner

2009

Learning and Motivation

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Behavioural data suggest that distinguishable orientations may be necessary for place learning even when distal cues define different start points in the room and a unique goal location. I examined whether changes in orientation are also impottant in place learning and navigation in a water T -maze. In Experiment 1, rats were trained to locate a hidden platform and given a no-platform probe trial after 16 and 64 trials with the maze moved to a new position. Direction and response strategies were more prevalent than a place strategy. In Experiment 2, acquisition of place, response, and direction strategies was assessed in a water T -maze that was moved between two locations during training. Rat were impaired on the place task when the maze was translated (moved to the L or R) but were successful when the maze was rotated across trials. These data are consistent with findings from appetitive tasks.Place Learning m Acknowledgements

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Section: The Present Studysupporting

confidence: 70%

An assessment of response, direction and place learning by rats in a water T-maze

Whyte

Martin

Skinner

2009

Learning and Motivation

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“…The distinction can perhaps be expressed more clearly by considering the importance of the pool wall for determining the directionality of the trajectory according to each hypothesis. If rats set a trajectory based on distal cues and then search at the appropriate distance from the pool wall as suggested by Hamilton et al(2007) then the pool wall is of little relevance to the initial direction of the swim. In contrast, if animals respond to locations in the apparatus that are disambiguated by distal cues, then the apparatus is a critical determinant of the direction of the swim.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rationale for using fewer training trials (12) prior to the probe trial than in the previous experiments and testing at the end of each day was based on the possibility that animals may navigate to the absolute platform location early in training and switch to another form of responding later in training. Although the results of Hamilton et al (2007) established that rats perform directional responding early as well as after more extensive training, this was only established in cases where the pool wall was a prominent feature of the environment. Thus, the present experiment was designed to address the issue of whether rats navigate to the absolute platform location during the tests when the animals were given minimal training to reach asymptote.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Furthermore, animals treated the relative location as if it were the absolute (trained) location, while treating the absolute location as if it were an arbitrarily selected, untrained location. None of the procedural variants or experimental manipulations utilized by Hamilton et al (2007) altered this basic pattern of observations, including the number of training trials, the amount of time animals remained on the escape platform during each trial, or the presence of other competing sources of control. Thus, the results of Hamilton et al (2007) suggest that directional responding may represent a more general process than true place navigation by which animals navigate to the escape platform in the water task.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Whether animals perform directional responses or navigate to the absolute spatial location of the platform during a critical test trial with the pool repositioned is evaluated in each of the experiments. Experiment 1 addressed the relationship between the overall amount of training and whether animals perform a directional response, and further provides data to complement the findings of Hamilton et al (2007) relevant to this issue. Figure 1).…”

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The relative influence of place and direction in the Morris water task.

Hamilton

Akers

Johnson

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes

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109

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Previous work from our laboratory has demonstrated that rats display a preference for directional responding over true place navigation in the Morris water task. The present study evaluated the range of situations in which this preference is observed and attempted to identify methods that favor navigation to the precise location of the escape platform in the room. A preference for directional responding over place navigation was observed in a wide range of procedures that included providing extensive training (Experiment 1), providing only platform placement experience in the absence of active swim training (Experiment 2), training navigation to multiple platform locations in a moving platform variant of the task (Experiment 3), and explicitly training navigation to a precise location in the room, versus navigation in a particular direction, regardless of the pool's position in the room (Experiments 4 -5). A modest preference for navigation to the precise spatial location of the platform was observed when the pool wall was virtually eliminated as a source of control by filling it to the top with water (Experiment 6).

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Cued platform training reveals early development of directional responding among preweanling rats in the Morris water task

Akers

Candelaria‐Cook

Rice

et al. 2010

Developmental Psychobiology

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Previous studies on the ontogeny of spatial learning report that rats younger than 19-21 days of age are incapable of learning the location of a platform relative to distal cues in the Morris water task. Here, we manipulated the spatial relationship of a cued platform to the pool and the distal visual room cues to investigate whether distal cues can control navigation among 16- to 24-day-old rats. Rats were trained to navigate to a cued platform in a rich distal cue environment. During critical test trials, the pool was shifted to a different, overlapping position and the cued platform was placed either in the same absolute location in the room or the same relative location in the pool as during training. Rats aged 17 days and older exhibited a disruption in performance when the cued platform was in the absolute location but not the relative location, indicating that rats had learned the direction of the cued platform within the distal cue environment. These observations indicate that (1) information acquired from distal room cues influences navigation as early as 17 days of age, (2) this distal cue information is preferentially used to guide navigation in a particular direction rather than to a precise place in the room, and (3) the directional nature of the influence of distal cues on navigation is invariant across development.

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How do room and apparatus cues control navigation in the Morris water task? Evidence for distinct contributions to a movement vector.

Cited by 83 publications

References 51 publications

An assessment of response, direction and place learning by rats in a water T-maze

An assessment of response, direction and place learning by rats in a water T-maze

The relative influence of place and direction in the Morris water task.

Cued platform training reveals early development of directional responding among preweanling rats in the Morris water task

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