Studies of Animal Cognition

这项研究将帮助我们更好地了解自然环境中的觅食动物如何编码和记住重要的事件和位置，例如何时何地有营养的食物来源，何时何地可以找到配偶，什么位置对于巢穴来说是安全的，以养育新的后代，以及由于捕食者的存在而应该避免的位置。 因此，这些发现将是重要的动物生存在加拿大的自然环境。 该提案概述了在实验控制环境中研究鸽子和大鼠的觅食和空间记忆的计划。 鸽子的行为将在一个新的装置中进行研究，该装置由一个带有两扇门的启动箱组成，每个门都通向一个大的竞技场或补丁。 这些小块的优点是，不同的食物（谷物或颗粒）可以以不同的配置或随机模式排列。 此外，不同食物（受欢迎和不受欢迎）的比例可以变化。 猪将被迫访问不同的补丁的训练试验，自由选择的探针试验将给予测量补丁的偏好。 通过这个过程，我将能够检查鸽子对不同食物的偏好，在不同条件下（如总食物量的变化），偏好与非偏好食物的百分比控制选择的程度，以及食物在斑块中的配置是否影响斑块偏好。 此外，摄像机将记录鸽子在补丁中的觅食行为。 因此，我们将能够研究觅食模式作为一种功能的食物和它们的分布在补丁和相关的觅食行为与补丁的选择探针试验。 在对大鼠的相关研究中，我将研究径向迷宫中工作记忆的准确性是如何被迷宫臂之间的食物分布模式控制的。 这项工作将集中在我们最近的发现，大鼠表现出隔离效应的迷宫。 大鼠更准确地选择一个non-visited手臂含有食物，如果该手臂以前访问过的武器在它的任何一侧比，如果它有以前non-visited武器在它的任何一侧。假设将被测试，大鼠显示这种效果作为一个进化的觅食策略，寻找食物在两个位置之间的位置，食物已经发现以前。 我预计，这项研究将有助于揭示鸟类和啮齿动物的认知过程如何通过使用学习和记忆来指导行为策略，使它们能够有效地觅食，从而促进它们的生存。 对狗的认知的持续研究将进一步揭示狗的思维与人类相似的程度（或程度）。

The research proposed will help us better understand how foraging animals in natural settings encode and remember significant events and locations, such as where and when nutritious sources of food are available, where and when mates can be found, what locations are safe for nests to raise new offspring, and what locations should be avoided because of the presence of predators. Thus, these findings will be important for animal survival in natural Canadian settings. This proposal outlines a plan to study foraging and spatial memory in pigeons and rats in experimentally controlled environments. Pigeon behavior will be studied in a new apparatus that consists of a start box with two doors, each of which leads to a large arena or patch. The advantage of these patches is that different food items (grains or pellets) can be arranged in different configurations or in a random pattern. In addition, the proportions of different foods (favored and non-favored) can be varied. Pigeons will be forced to visit the different patches on training trials, and free-choice probe trials will be given to measure patch preference. With this procedure, I will be able to examine pigeons' preferences for different foods, the extent to which percentage of favored vs. non-favored food controls choice under different conditions (such as variation in the total food available), and whether configuration of foods in a patch affects patch preference. In addition, video cameras will record pigeons' foraging behavior in the patches. Thus, we will be able to study patterns of foraging as a function of kinds of foods and their distributions in the patches and to correlate foraging behavior with patch choice on probe trials. In related work with rats, I will examine how accuracy of working memory on the radial maze is controlled by the pattern of food distribution among the arms of the maze. This work will focus on our recent finding that rats show an isolation effect on the maze. Rats more accurately choose a non-visited arm containing food if that arm has previously visited arms on either side of it than if it has previously non-visited arms on either side of it. The hypothesis will be tested that rats show this effect as an evolved foraging strategy for finding food in a location between two locations where food has been found previously. I anticipate that this research will help to reveal how cognitive processes in birds and rodents promote their survival through the use of learning and memory to direct behavioural strategies that allow them to efficiently forage for food. Continuing studies of dog cognition will further reveal how much (or little) dogs' thinking resembles that of humans.