The Mechanism of Vision: XV. Preliminary Studies of the Rat's Capacity for Detail Vision

Lashley, K. S.

doi:10.1080/00221309.1938.9709894

Cited by 348 publications

(249 citation statements)

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“…Visual discrimination tasks often require the animals to choose between simple geometric shapes, and an implicit assumption in these studies is that rats and mice process shape in a holistic manner when making these discriminations. This assumption, however, has never been properly verified, and rests mainly on a relatively old literature (Fields 1932;Lashley 1938;Sutherland 1961a,b). Discovering the perceptual and cognitive processes underlying these kinds of behavioral tasks is critical if we are to make appropriate links with emerging neurobiological discoveries.…”

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Do rats use shape to solve “shape discriminations”?

Minini¹,

Jeffery²

2006

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Visual discrimination tasks are increasingly used to explore the neurobiology of vision in rodents, but it remains unclear how the animals solve these tasks: Do they process shapes holistically, or by using low-level features such as luminance and angle acuity? In the present study we found that when discriminating triangles from squares, rats did not use shape but instead relied on local luminance differences in the lower hemifield. A second experiment prevented this strategy by using stimuli-squares and rectangles-that varied in size and location, and for which the only constant predictor of reward was aspect ratio (ratio of height to width: a simple descriptor of "shape"). Rats eventually learned to use aspect ratio but only when no other discriminand was available, and performance remained very poor even at asymptote. These results suggest that although rats can process both dimensions simultaneously, they do not naturally solve shape discrimination tasks this way. This may reflect either a failure to visually process global shape information or a failure to discover shape as the discriminative stimulus in a simultaneous discrimination. Either way, our results suggest that simultaneous shape discrimination is not a good task for studies of visual perception in rodents.Discrimination tasks have long been used to probe perceptual processes in animals, and visual discrimination tasks, particularly automated ones, are increasingly used in rodents because of the contribution that rodent neurobiological studies (such as newly emerging transgenic models) can make to understanding the brain mechanisms underlying visual perception (Bussey et al. 1994(Bussey et al. , 2001Cook et al. 2004). Visual discrimination tasks often require the animals to choose between simple geometric shapes, and an implicit assumption in these studies is that rats and mice process shape in a holistic manner when making these discriminations. This assumption, however, has never been properly verified, and rests mainly on a relatively old literature (Fields 1932;Lashley 1938; Sutherland 1961a,b). Discovering the perceptual and cognitive processes underlying these kinds of behavioral tasks is critical if we are to make appropriate links with emerging neurobiological discoveries.The present paper reports a series of investigations that led us to try and determine whether rats really use "shape" when making shape discriminations. Believing at the outset that this was a well-secured fact, we began with a more ambitious experiment to determine whether rats could respond to figures defined by illusory contours (the so-called "Kanizsa figures"), in which illusory form is created by means of "inducing stimuli" (Fig. 1) and is perceived in the absence of real (i.e., luminance-defined) contours. Several authors have proposed that the perception of illusory figures is largely the result of low-level mechanisms that have evolved to extract contours that are present in the environment but absent from the retinal representation: due, for instance, to occlus...

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Do rats use shape to solve “shape discriminations”?

Minini¹,

Jeffery²

2006

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“…The Hebb (1937) -Lashley (1938 data would not fit on this suggested dimension. However, since this comparison is confounded by a possible genetic difference, specifically manifested by the difference in the pigmentation ofthe eyes, it would seem that the present data and that of Woodruff (1951) provide more solid empirical data.…”

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The effects of severely restricted visual experience on the perception of “identity”

Woodruff

Slövak

1965

Psychon Sci

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This study was concerned with the role of visual experience on identity perception. Hooded rats were used; 10 reared in darkness and 10 normally reared. As adult animals they were compared on learning to discriminate vertical and horizontal striations. No difference in performance was found. These findings are contrary to those predicted by Hebb (1949) and in agreement with those found by Woodruff (1951). It is concluded that prolonged visual experience is not a necessary requirement for simple identity visual perc)eption. IntroductionHebb (1949) presented a basis for a "revision of perceptual theory" in which, among other things, he attempted to point out the respective roles of inherited behavioral tendencies and learning in relatively simple visual discrimination tasks. He utilized two concepts, "primitive unity" and "identity." Primitive unity referred "to that unity and segregation from the background which seems to be a direct product of the pattern of senso:r-y excitation and the inherited characteristics of the nervous system on which it acts" (Hebb, 1949, p. 19). This was demonstrated by a study (Hebb, 1937) in which albino rats, reared in darkness, oriented themselves in the direction of a figure against a ground the first time they received any visual stimulation. Identity is defined as "referring to the properties of association inherent in perception" (Hebb, 1949, p. 26) and "is dependent on a prolonged experience" (p. 28). This concept was illustrated by another aspect of his above mentioned study (Hebb, 1937) in which white rats, reared in darkness, learned to discriminate between vertical and horizontal striations using a Lashley jumping apparatus. These data were compared with those of normally reared animals in a study by Lashley (1938). Hebb's dark reared Sstook six times as many trials to learn this discrimination. Hebb (1958) and Riesen (1961) pointed out that experience is fundamental to the perception of "identity."Woodruff (1951) reared 24 hooded rats in complete darkness until they were 150 days old and compared their performance in learning a vertical-horizontal striations discrimination with a normally reared group of rats. The apparatus was a Lashley jumping box, modified by an elevated Y-maze set up to the openings. A correction method of running was used and the criterion of learning was two consecutive blocks of at least 9 correct trials out of 10. contrary to the above prediction, no difference was found between the two .groups.Psyclwn. Sci., 1965, VoL 2. A. B. Woodruff and M. L Slovak NORTHERN ILUNOIS UNIVERSITYThe discriminanda used in these studies were the same, but they do show some methodological differences.(1) Hebb-Lashley used a jumping response and Woodruff a running response. (2) The Hebb-Lashley Ss were first taught a black-white discrimination before they were introduced to the striations, but Woodruff's were not.(3) Hebb-Lashley used a noncorrection method and Woodruff used a correction method. (4) Most important Woodruff's Ss were hooded rats, Hebb us...

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“…He attributed the difference to attention and inattention. Lashley (1938) used the Lashley jumping stand to study visual discriminations in rats. He presented various twodimensional geometrical figures as stimuli.…”

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confidence: 99%

Comparative cognition in the 1930s

Dewsbury

2000

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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According to the received view of the history of psychology, behaviorism so dominated psychology prior to the 1960s that there was little research in animal cognition. A review of the research on animal cognition during the 1930s reveals a rich literature dealing with such topics as insight, reasoning, tool use, delay problems, oddity learning, abstraction, spatial cognition, and problem solving, among others. Material on "higher processes" or a related topic was prominent in the textbooks of the period. Tracing academic lineages reveals such teachers as Harvey Carr, Robert M. Yerkes, and Edward C. Tolman as sources of this interest. The alleged hegemony of strict behavioristic psychology, interpreted as excluding research on animal cognition, requires revision. Some possible reasons for this neglect are suggested.According to the received view of the history of the study of animal learning and cognition, there was much interest in animal cognition among early comparative psychologists, but that interest died with the advent ofbehaviorism, only to resurface with the "cognitive revolution" of the 1960s. According to a leading textbook in the field of comparative cognition, "it would not be exaggerating too greatly to say that from the 1920s until the 1960s or 1970s, American experimental psychology was virtually synonymous with behaviorism" (Roitblat, 1987, p. 52). Wasserman (1993) writes of "a long, fallow period [in the study of] the cognitive processes ofanimals" (p. 221). For Green (1996), "cognition simply was not a going concern in psychology before the I950s" (p. 35).As a critical part of this hegemony of behaviorism, it is argued, studies ofcognitive processes were excluded during this period, as behaviorists sought to explain complex processes as a reflection of more simple processes of learning and conditioning. Thus, "at the beginning of the 1900s psychologists' study of cognitive processes in animals narrowed into the study of associative learning... The subfield of animal cognition arose in the 1970s" (Shettleworth, 1998, p. 6), and "so long as behaviorism held sway-that is, during the 1920s, 1930s, and I940s-questions about the nature of human language, planning, problem solving, imagination, and the like could only be approached stealthily and with difficulty, ifthey were tolerated at all" (Gardner, 1985, p. II).This view of a "cognitive revolution," in the spirit of Thomas Kuhn, has been challenged by Leahey (1992), who pointed out that, during the years in question, behaviorism was less dominant than is portrayed by the received The author thanks Marc N. Branch, Thomas H. Leahey, and Herbert L. Roitblat for comments on an earlier version of this article. Correspondence should be addressed to D. A. Dewsbury, Department ofPsychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-2250 (e-mail: dewsbury@psych.ufl.edu). view. According to Leahey, "the central work of mentalistic psychology continued, but it was no longer thought of as the study of consciousness" (p. 313). Similarly, Greenwood (1999...

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The Mechanism of Vision: XV. Preliminary Studies of the Rat's Capacity for Detail Vision

Cited by 348 publications

References 51 publications

Do rats use shape to solve “shape discriminations”?

Do rats use shape to solve “shape discriminations”?

The effects of severely restricted visual experience on the perception of “identity”

Comparative cognition in the 1930s

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