Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Animal Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Zoology

Selected Works

2014

Radial maze

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences

Variations In Radial Maze Performance Under Different Levels Of Food And Water Deprivation, Robert H.I. Dale, William A. Roberts Jun 2014

Variations In Radial Maze Performance Under Different Levels Of Food And Water Deprivation, Robert H.I. Dale, William A. Roberts

Robert H. I. Dale

Four groups of rats were tested on an eight-arm radial maze under a free-choice procedure. The subjects were maintained at either 80% or 100% of their preexperimental free-feeding weights through restricted access to either food or water. Water-deprived subjects received water in the maze; food-deprived subjects received food. Water-deprived subjects learned the task faster than food-deprived subjects. The four groups developed different response patterns. These were measured by the mean transition size, the average angular distance (in 45° units) between consecutively chosen arms. Rats foraging for food and water developed different search strategies, with water-deprived subjects exhibiting lower mean transition …


Spatial And Temporal Response Patterns On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Spatial And Temporal Response Patterns On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Six maze-experienced hooded rats were timed during five trials on which they collected water from all arms of an eight-arm radial maze, then made five more choices. All subjects frequently exhibited a “task-completion pause:” The subjects rarely spent more than 1 sec in the center of the maze between choices until they had entered all eight arms, then stopped in the center of the maze. In contrast, the time spent in each arm gradually increased until all of the water had been obtained, then decreased slightly. Four subjects began every trial by choosing eight consecutive adjacent arms. The task-completion pause …


Spatial Memory In Pigeons On A Four-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Spatial Memory In Pigeons On A Four-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Pigeon spatial memory was examined using a four-arm radial maze. The maze had four arms, spaced at 90° intervals, extending radially from a central choice area. Subjects were forced into three arms, then permitted two choices to enter the remaining ann. Five subjects chose accurately (90% correct) with delays of 5 min or less, their choices depended on extramaze cues, and the food in the target arm provided no essential cues. After an incorrect first choice, subjects' second choices were more accurate than chance. These data suggest that, while spatial memory has many similar characteristics in rats and pigeons, pigeon …


Limitations On Spatial Memory In Mice, Robert H.I. Dale, Martin Bedard May 2014

Limitations On Spatial Memory In Mice, Robert H.I. Dale, Martin Bedard

Robert H. I. Dale

Rats have an impressive ability to remember locations they have visited. Two experiments used an eight-arm radial maze to determine whether mice showed two important characteristics of this spatial memory: its durability, and its dependence on stimuli outside the maze (extreme stimuli). In Experiment 1, food-deprived mice were allowed to eat from four of the eight arms of the maze then, after delays of 5 sec, 1 min, or 5 min, they were permitted to choose the remaining arms. Choice accuracy declined significantly with the longer delays, but always remained above chance. In Experiment 2, the maze was rotated 180° …


Remembrance Of Places Lasts: Proactive Inhibition And Patterns Of Choice In Rat Spatial Memory, William A. Roberts, Robert H.I. Dale May 2014

Remembrance Of Places Lasts: Proactive Inhibition And Patterns Of Choice In Rat Spatial Memory, William A. Roberts, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

A series of experiments was carried out to evaluate the notion that rats given a sequence of massed daily trials on the radial maze reset working memory at the end of each trial by deleting its contents. Although curves presented by D. S. Olton [Scientific American, 1977, 236, 82-98: In S. H. Hulse, H. Fowler, & W. K. Honig (Eds.), Cognitive processes in animal behavior, 1978, Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum] show that rats return to errorless performance at the beginning of each trial after the first, the fact that accuracy falls less rapidly over choices on Trial 1 …


Radial-Maze Performance In The Rat Following Lesions Of Posterior Neocortex, Melvyn A. Goodale, Robert H.I. Dale May 2014

Radial-Maze Performance In The Rat Following Lesions Of Posterior Neocortex, Melvyn A. Goodale, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

The present experiment was designed to investigate the role of posterior neocortex (areas 17, 18 and 18a) in the maintenance of performance on the radial maze. Following training to criterion on the 8-arm radial maze, rats received either sham operations, bilateral eye enucleations, lesions of posterior neocortex, or combined enucleations and lesions of posterior neocortex. While the enucleated animals with intact brains showed a slight, but significant performance decrement relative to the sham-operated group, the other two groups, with lesions of areas 17, 18 and 18a, each showed a massive deficit. This large deficit was observed even in the group …


Interactions Between Response Stereotypy And Memory Strategies On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale, Nancy K. Innis May 2014

Interactions Between Response Stereotypy And Memory Strategies On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale, Nancy K. Innis

Robert H. I. Dale

Three groups of water-deprived rats collected water from the ends of the 8 arms of an 8-arm radial maze. Sighted subjects, and subjects blinded either with or without pre-enucleation experience on the radial maze, all retrieved the water efficiently. Most of the subjects exhibited the same response stereotypy, regularly choosing 8 adjacent arms of the maze, then stopping in the center of the maze. The strategies underlying this performance were analyzed by interrupting trials and rotating the maze 180° after the subject had made 3 choices. Sighted subjects depended on extramaze stimuli, naive-blind subjects depended on intramaze stimuli and experienced-blind …