Visually based path-planning by Japanese monkeys.
To construct an animal model of strategy formation, we designed a maze path-finding task. First, we asked monkeys to capture a goal in the maze by moving a cursor on the screen. Cursor movement was linked to movements of each wrist. When the animals learned the association between cursor movement and wrist movement, we established a start and a goal in the maze, and asked them to find a path between them. We found that the animals took the shortest pathway, rather than approaching the goal randomly. We further found that the animals adopted a strategy of selecting a fixed intermediate point in the visually presented maze to select one of the shortest pathways, suggesting a visually based path planning. To examine their capacity to use that strategy flexibly, we transformed the task by blocking pathways in the maze, providing a problem to solve. The animals then developed a strategy of solving the problem by planning a novel shortest path from the start to the goal and rerouting the path to bypass the obstacle.
Department of Physiology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, 980-8575, Sendai, Japan. hmushiak@mail.cc.tohoku.ac.jp
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H
Mushiake
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Saito
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Sakamoto
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Sato
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Tanji
D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D003626:Data Display; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D008251:Macaca; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014953:Wrist / Q000502:physiology