IBYME   02675
INSTITUTO DE BIOLOGIA Y MEDICINA EXPERIMENTAL
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Goal Orientation by Geometric and Feature Cues: Spatial Learning in the Terrestrial Toad Rhinella arenarum
Autor/es:
SOTELO, M. I., BINGMAN, V. P. & MUZIO, R. N.
Revista:
ANIMAL COGNITION
Editorial:
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
Referencias:
Lugar: HEIDELBERG; Año: 2015
ISSN:
1435-9448
Resumen:
Although of crucial importance in vertebrateevolution, amphibians are rarely considered in studies ofcomparative cognition. Using water as reward, we studiedwhether the terrestrial toad, Rhinella arenarum, is alsocapable of encoding geometric and feature information tonavigate to a goal location. Experimental toads, partiallydehydrated, were trained in either a white rectangular box(Geometry-only, Experiment 1) or in the same box with aremovable colored panel (Geometry?Feature, Experiment2) covering one wall. Four water containers were used, butonly one (Geometry?Feature), or two in geometricallyequivalent corners (Geometry-only), had water accessibleto the trained animals. After learning to successfully locatethe water reward, probe trials were carried out by changingthe shape of the arena or the location of the feature cue.Probe tests revealed that, under the experimental conditionsused, toads can use both geometry and feature to locate agoal location, but geometry is more potent as a navigationalcue. The results generally agree with findings fromother vertebrates and support the idea that at thebehavioral-level geometric orientation is a conserved featureshared by all vertebrates.