Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks

Lee, Sang Ah; Austen, Joseph M.; Sovrano, Valeria Anna; Vallortigara, Giorgio; McGregor, Anthony; Lever, Colin

Abstract

The original provocative formulation of the ‘geometric module’ hypothesis was based on a working-memory task in rats which suggested that spontaneous reorientation behavior is based solely on the environmental geometry and is impervious to featural cues. Here, we retested that claim by returning to a spontaneous navigation task with rats and domestic chicks, using a single prominent featural cue (a striped wall) within a rectangular arena. Experiments 1 and 2 tested the influence of geometry and features separately. In Experiment 1, we found that both rats and chicks used environmental geometry to compute locations in a plain rectangular arena. In Experiment 2, while chicks failed to spontaneously use a striped wall in a square arena, rats showed a modest influence of the featural cue as a local marker to the goal. The critical third experiment tested the striped wall inside the rectangular arena. We found that although chicks solely relied on geometry, rats navigated based on both environmental geometry and the featural cue. While our findings with rats are contrary to classic claims of an impervious geometric module, they are consistent with the hypothesis that navigation by boundaries and features may involve distinct underlying cognitive computations. We conclude by discussing the similarities and differences in feature-use across tasks and species.

Citation

Lee, S. A., Austen, J. M., Sovrano, V. A., Vallortigara, G., McGregor, A., & Lever, C. (2020). Distinct and combined responses to environmental geometry and features in a working-memory reorientation task in rats and chicks. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Article 7508. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64366-w

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 9, 2020
• Online Publication Date: May 5, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 13, 2020
• Journal: Scientific Reports
• Electronic ISSN: 2045-2322
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 7508
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64366-w
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1270824