| Records |
| Author |
Chiesa, A.D.; Pecchia, T.; Tommasi, L.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Multiple landmarks, the encoding of environmental geometry and the spatial logics of a dual brain |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2006 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
9 |
Issue  |
4 |
Pages |
281-293 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Association Learning/*physiology; Chickens; *Cues; Dominance, Cerebral/*physiology; *Environment; Exploratory Behavior/*physiology; Logic; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/physiology |
| Abstract |
A series of place learning experiments was carried out in young chicks (Gallus gallus) in order to investigate how the geometry of a landmark array and that of a walled enclosure compete when disoriented animals could rely on both of them to re-orient towards the centre of the enclosure. A square-shaped array (four wooden sticks) was placed in the middle of a square-shaped enclosure, the two structures being concentric. Chicks were trained to ground-scratch to search for food hidden in the centre of the enclosure (and the array). To check for effects of array degradation, one, two, three or all landmarks were removed during test trials. Chicks concentrated their searching activity in the central area of the enclosure, but their accuracy was inversely contingent on the number of landmarks removed; moreover, the landmarks still present within the enclosure appeared to influence the shape of the searching patterns. The reduction in the number of landmarks affected the searching strategy of chicks, suggesting that they had focussed mainly on local cues when landmarks were present within the enclosure. When all the landmarks were removed, chicks searched over a larger area, suggesting an absolute encoding of distances from the local cues and less reliance on the relationships provided by the geometry of the enclosure. Under conditions of monocular vision, chicks tended to rely on different strategies to localize the centre on the basis of the eye (and thus the hemisphere) in use, the left hemisphere attending to details of the environment and the right hemisphere attending to the global shape. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology and B.R.A.I.N. Centre for Neuroscience, University of Trieste, via S. Anastasio 12, 34100, Trieste, Italy |
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English |
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| ISSN |
1435-9448 |
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| Notes |
PMID:16941155 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2443 |
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| Author |
Kelly, D.M.; Spetch, M.L. |
| Title |
Pigeons encode relative geometry |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2001 |
Publication |
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process |
| Volume |
27 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
417-422 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Behavior, Animal/physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Columbidae; Discrimination Learning/physiology; Form Perception/*physiology; Space Perception/*physiology |
| Abstract |
Pigeons were trained to search for hidden food in a rectangular environment designed to eliminate any external cues. Following training, the authors administered unreinforced test trials in which the geometric properties of the apparatus were manipulated. During tests that preserved the relative geometry but altered the absolute geometry of the environment, the pigeons continued to choose the geometrically correct corners, indicating that they encoded the relative geometry of the enclosure. When tested in a square enclosure, which distorted both the absolute and relative geometry, the pigeons randomly chose among the 4 corners, indicating that their choices were not based on cues external to the apparatus. This study provides new insight into how metric properties of an environment are encoded by pigeons. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2E9. kelly@bio.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de |
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0097-7403 |
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| Notes |
PMID:11676090 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2770 |
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| Author |
Tommasi, L.; Vallortigara, G. |
| Title |
Searching for the center: spatial cognition in the domestic chick (Gallus gallus) |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2000 |
Publication |
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Psychol Anim Behav Process |
| Volume |
26 |
Issue |
4 |
Pages |
477-486 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Behavior, Animal/physiology; Chickens; Cognition/*physiology; Learning/physiology; Male; Space Perception/*physiology; Spatial Behavior/*physiology |
| Abstract |
Chicks learned to find food hidden under sawdust by ground-scratching in the central position of the floor of a closed arena. When tested inan arena of identical shape but a larger area, chicks searched at 2 different locations, one corresponding to the correct distance (i.e., center) in the smaller (training) arena and the other to the actual center of the test arena. When tested in an arena of the same shape but a smaller area, chicks searched in the center of it. These results suggest that chicks are able to encode information on the absolute and relative distance of the food from the walls of the arena. After training in the presence of a landmark located at the center of the arena, animals searched at the center even after the removal of the landmark. Marked changes in the height of the walls of the arena produced some displacement in searching behavior, suggesting that chicks used the angular size of the walls to estimate distances. |
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Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Italy |
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English |
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0097-7403 |
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| Notes |
PMID:11056887 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2774 |
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| Author |
Bennett, A.T. |
| Title |
Do animals have cognitive maps? |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
1996 |
Publication |
The Journal of Experimental Biology |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Biol |
| Volume |
199 |
Issue |
Pt 1 |
Pages |
219-224 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Cognition/*physiology; Humans; Space Perception/*physiology; Visual Pathways |
| Abstract |
Drawing on studies of humans, rodents, birds and arthropods, I show that 'cognitive maps' have been used to describe a wide variety of spatial concepts. There are, however, two main definitions. One, sensu Tolman, O'Keefe and Nadel, is that a cognitive map is a powerful memory of landmarks which allows novel short-cutting to occur. The other, sensu Gallistel, is that a cognitive map is any representation of space held by an animal. Other definitions with quite different meanings are also summarised. I argue that no animal has been conclusively shown to have a cognitive map, sensu Tolman, O'Keefe and Nadel, because simpler explanations of the crucial novel short-cutting results are invariably possible. Owing to the repeated inability of experimenters to eliminate these simpler explanations over at least 15 years, and the confusion caused by the numerous contradictory definitions of a cognitive map, I argue that the cognitive map is no longer a useful hypothesis for elucidating the spatial behaviour of animals and that use of the term should be avoided. |
| Address |
Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Adelaide, Australia |
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English |
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0022-0949 |
ISBN |
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| Notes |
PMID:8576693 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2756 |
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| Author |
Gallistel, C.R.; Cramer, A.E. |
| Title |
Computations on metric maps in mammals: getting oriented and choosing a multi-destination route |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
1996 |
Publication |
The Journal of Experimental Biology |
Abbreviated Journal |
J Exp Biol |
| Volume |
199 |
Issue |
Pt 1 |
Pages |
211-217 |
| Keywords |
Animals; Brain/physiology; Cercopithecus aethiops; Cognition/*physiology; Humans; Mammals/*physiology; Movement; Orientation/*physiology; Rats; Space Perception; Visual Pathways/*physiology |
| Abstract |
The capacity to construct a cognitive map is hypothesized to rest on two foundations: (1) dead reckoning (path integration); (2) the perception of the direction and distance of terrain features relative to the animal. A map may be constructed by combining these two sources of positional information, with the result that the positions of all terrain features are represented in the coordinate framework used for dead reckoning. When animals need to become reoriented in a mapped space, results from rats and human toddlers indicate that they focus exclusively on the shape of the perceived environment, ignoring non-geometric features such as surface colors. As a result, in a rectangular space, they are misoriented half the time even when the two ends of the space differ strikingly in their appearance. In searching for a hidden object after becoming reoriented, both kinds of subjects search on the basis of the object's mapped position in the space rather than on the basis of its relationship to a goal sign (e.g. a distinctive container or nearby marker), even though they have demonstrably noted the relationship between the goal and the goal sign. When choosing a multidestination foraging route, vervet monkeys look at least three destinations ahead, even though they are only capable of keeping a maximum of six destinations in mind at once. |
| Address |
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles 90095, USA |
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English |
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0022-0949 |
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| Notes |
PMID:8576692 |
Approved |
no |
| Call Number |
Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
2757 |
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