Research Project
3387077
Most research in spatial cognition in animals has concerned spatial memory, particularly the "working memory" for potential food sites. There has been little experimental work on the spatial discriminations necessary for spatial memory. The role of distal stimuli in spatial memory has rarely been analyzed. One reason may be the lack of an appropriate "preparation". Pigeons are proficient in a spatial memory task that resembles a ground- feeding, "foraging" situation. Our current work has shown that pigeons can discriminate different locations shown to them in pictures, and that they can transfer this discrimination between "positive" and "negative" locations to the spatial setting that they represent. In the proposed research we want to take advantage of this transfer to study the processes by which spatial discriminations govern spatial foraging. First we want to extend and refine our preliminary work to use simultaneous (rather than successive) discriminations between pictures. This more closely corresponds to the animal's choice of locations in a natural setting. This may also facilitate transfer of discrimination from the space to the pictures, which we have not obtained so far. The second topic is the analysis of the features of the visual environment that are important for spatial discrimination and memory. Either extended or narrow views of the spatial setting will be provided in pictures as the pigeons discriminate between different locations, before they transfer this discrimination to the spatial setting. Also, we can study the roles of particular features in isolation from the general background, as these can be separated from each other in pictures, but not so readily in the spatial setting. Then they can be recombined in the spatial setting to study their relative effectiveness. The third major aim is the development of a "working memory" procedure for spatial discriminations. The pigeon will "sample" a pictured environmental cue to the location of food. Then it will be admitted to the spatial setting in order to search for food. We will first find out whether vendical samples will "prime" an efficient search, in comparison to "misleading" samples, when only one food source is available. Then we want to determine whether such cues can also serve as "samples" for a discrimination between two or more possible sources of food in the spatial setting.
