Rats' (Rattus norvegicus) Encoding and Retrieval of Spatial and Non-Spatial Environmental Features in a Foraging Task

Animals use various spatial and non-spatial cues when navigating the environment. They can use spatial cues such as a landmark's local position, global position and orientation, or they can use a landmark's non-spatial featural information. The objectives of this thesis were: 1) to determine the conditions under which rats process information separately or simultaneously; 2) to determine how rats process stimuli when previously fixed information becomes more variable; 3) to determine whether animals can use spatial information when a previously encoded non-spatial cue is occasionally eliminated. The results obtained from this research suggest that rats use two different types of processing as a function of variability of redundant information. Moreover, changes within trials were only disruptive for animals that encountered information that had not varied between trials. However, with continued exposure to within-trial changes, these animals' accuracy increased to levels comparable to animals presented with information that varied between trials.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.Sc.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Biological Sciences

Grantor

University of Windsor

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Keshen, Corrine Nicole

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jerome Cohen

Licence

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_CA

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14776/4783

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwindsor.scholaris.ca:20.500.14776/4783