title: Pattern Cue and Visual Cue Competition in a Foraging Task by Rats.
abstract: In 4 experiments, rats searched for food located on top of 4 of 16 towers which were arranged in a 4 × 4 matrix. The location of the baited towers was cued by visual landmark cues (the baited towers were striped, the others white) and by pattern cues (the baited towers were located in a 2 × 2 pattern within the larger 4 × 4 matrix) or simply by pattern cues without visual landmark cues. In 3 of the experiments, visual cues, after being paired with pattern cues, were removed altogether (Experiment 1), put into competition with pattern cues (Experiment 2), or made noninformative (Experiment 3). In Experiment 4, it was the pattern cues that were made noninformative. Collectively, the data suggest strongly that whereas the pattern is learned, even when presumably more salient visual cues are present, the connection between pattern and food location is much weaker than that between visual cue and food location. These data are more easily explained by a model of learning that includes dedicated modules than by a single-system associative model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, 1349 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H3. mcole@uwo.ca.|Department of Neuroscience, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA. mcole@uwo.ca.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Clipperton-Allen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, 1349 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H3.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cole
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, 1349 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H3.|Caramanna Friedberg, LLP, Toronto, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Margaux
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Peck
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, 1349 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 1H3.|Holden & Quirt, Milton, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Quirt
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D007858:Learning; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D051381:Rats; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Cue competition; Modularity; Object recognition; Pattern recognition; Rat