Learning and Cognition in amphibians

MUZIO, RUBEN N.; PUDDINGTON, MARTIN; SOTELO, INES; DANERI, M. FLORENCIA

Bogota

Congreso; XVII Biennal Meeting of the International Society for Comparative Psychology; 2014

International Society for Comparative Psychology

Although of crucial importance in vertebrate evolution, amphibians are rarely considered in studies of comparative cognition. Previously, we demonstrated that toads use both geometry and global features to navigate and that they prefer the former to find a goal location. Geometry information appeared to be dependent on the hippocampus, which generally agrees with findings in other vertebrate species. Using water as reward, we now studied whether the terrestrial toad, Rhinella arenarum, is capable of encoding geometric and feature information provided by local cues of the environment, to navigate to a goal location. Experimental toads, partially dehydrated, were trained in a white rectangular arena with four features of different shape and color, one on each corner of the box. Four water containers were used, but only one had water accessible to the test animals. After learning to successfully locate the water reward, probe trials were carried out by changing the shape of the arena and removing or changing the location of the feature cues. Probe tests revealed that, under the experimental conditions used, toads can use both geometry and local features to reach a goal location, and that both sources are equally important to locate the goal. Even though results show redundant evidence of the importance of geometry for navigation, which supports the idea that it is a conserved feature shared by all vertebrates, they also prove that certain kind of features are equally relevant to navigate for this species.