Benhamou (1996), for example, found that predictions from cognitive mapping theory of rats' navigation in a water maze were not supported. Benhamou's maze was designed of three elements. The first was a circular swimming pool, constructed of clear Plexiglas. The second element was an opaque-walled metallic cylinder with an opening on one side that was placed within the larger pool. Its diameter was less than that of the pool and, when placed in the pool, left a channel between the pool wall and the outside of the cylinder wall. The opening of the cylinder was reoriented from one trial to the next to prevent the opening itself from controlling the rat's responding. The third element was the goal, a small white cylinder located in the inner pool and slightly submerged beneath the water's surface. On each trial, the rat was released into the channel between the pool wall and the outer wall of the smaller cylinder at a location opposite the cylinder's opening into the water inside.
cognitive maps in rats and men pdf download
There is also the matter of the actual utilization of such a cognitive map. An examination of how humans actually behave with respect to a physical map reveals that a map evokes quite complex behavior such as talking and alternating looks at the map and searching the environment for landmarks, street signs, and other visual cues (Brown & Laurier, 2004). If one assumes that rats are engaging in similar behaviors when consulting a cognitive map, one then is in the position of having to discover the conditions under which rats would have acquired such a complex repertoire. If, on the other hand, rats do not engage in such behavior (excluding talking), what is the means by which the cognitive map is consulted, read, compared to the spatial characteristics of the maze itself, and so on (Wittgenstein, 1958, Remark 653)?
Finally, Bennett (1996) reviewed experimental research investigating navigation to a goal and a number of researchers' differing definitions of a cognitive map. The experiments reviewed had included participants as disparate as desert ants, honeybees, rats, chimps, and humans. Bennett summarized his review as follows:
Do animals need cognitive maps? One of the main difficulties in answering this question is finding a definitive scenario where having and not having a cognitive map result in measurably different outcomes. Many key predictions made by models involving some sort of cognitive map can also be replicated by models without a cognitive map. Here we consider published data on rodents navigating in darkness inside homogeneous arenas. The head direction system becomes unstable within three minutes in darkness, yet place and grid cells have been reported to fire in the same locations for thirty minutes or longer. We show firstly that it is theoretically implausible for path integration alone to maintain a stable positional representation beyond three minutes, given a drifting head direction system in darkness. Secondly, we prove that even assuming perfect boundary knowledge is insufficient to maintain a stable positional representation. Finally, we show in simulated and real arenas that a nearoptimal combination of path integration and boundary representation is sufficient to produce stable positional representations in darkness consistent with published data. The necessity for fusing path integration and landmark information for accurate localization in darkness is both consistent with, and motivates the existence of, cognitive maps.
The first half of the semester will be focused on teaching foundational concepts and research on the topic of cognitive maps and reinforcement learning. Then, we will switch to discussing current research trends and state of the art research for the second half of the semester. The instructors (Wu & Schwartenbeck) and guest speakers will lead the first sessions, and then students will be asked to prepare paper presentations for remaining sessions. Each class will take 2 hrs, and grading will be assigned on the basis of paper presentations and contributions to discussions.
In 2021, Maya Zhe Wang and Benjamin Hayden theorized that curiosity, or the desire to gather information, is the main motivation behind latent learning. This leads learners to build cognitive maps about their environments.
It is widely accepted that the hippocampus is at the center of the cognitive map neural network (Jeffery, 2015; Morris et al., 1982; O'Keefe and Nadel, 1978). According to the parallel map theory, an integrated map is formed in the hippocampus via two mapping systems (Jacobs, 2003; Jacobs and Schenk, 2003). The bearing map encodes cues that provide directional information such as environmental gradients or distant beacons. Evidence for bearing maps in amphibians has been broadly found in field and laboratory experiments, including use of magnetic fields (Phillips, 1996; Shakhparonov and Ogurtsov, 2017), sensory beacons (Daneri et al., 2011, 2015; Kundey et al., 2016; Liu and Burmeister, 2017; Liu et al., 2016; Ogurtsov et al., 2018; Sinsch, 1987, 1990, 2007, 2014) and arena geometry (Sotelo et al., 2015, 2017). The sketch map, in contrast, stores topographical information by recording geometric relationships of position cues and corresponds to the classic definition of the cognitive map. A hallmark of sketch maps is that they enable animals to use geometric spatial relationships among allocentric cues to configure the shortest pathway from any novel location to a goal (Bennett, 1996; Gallistel, 1990; Jacobs and Menzel, 2014; O'Keefe and Nadel, 1978; Shettleworth, 2009). This hallmark of the sketch map is not easy to demonstrate and is the focus of much debate (Bennett, 1996; Cheeseman et al., 2014a,b; Cheung et al., 2014; Shettleworth, 2009). One widely accepted method to test for the sketch map is use of the Morris water maze (Jacobs and Menzel, 2014; Shettleworth, 2009); however, a swimming task is not suitable for the majority of vertebrates. Various tasks have been designed to test some aspects of the sketch map in other vertebrates (Fremouw et al., 1997; Kamil and Jones, 1997; LaDage et al., 2012; López et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2010; Rodriguez et al., 1994). The only study, to our knowledge, to directly test for a sketch map in amphibians showed that leopard frogs did not utilize a sketch map in a classic Morris water maze (Bilbo et al., 2000). Whether these results were due to maze design, choice of species, or overall lack of a sketch map in amphibians is unknown.
Our moat maze enabled poison frogs to overcome their tendency toward thigmotaxis to the maze wall in order to learn to find the hidden platform. The probe trial, in which the platform was removed, confirmed that frogs did not use a beacon associated with the platform, or any salient cue near the platform, to learn the task. Furthermore, the configuration of visual cues, which were distal to the platform, ensured that the frogs would not have been able to use a single cue as a beacon to navigate accurately to the platform, ruling out the use of any single vector to navigate in the maze. Finally, we demonstrated that the frogs were able to take a direct pathway from multiple unpredictable locations. The performance of poison frogs is qualitatively similar to that of rodents in the classic Morris water maze (Morris, 1984). Together, these findings represent the first demonstration of a sketch map (topographic information) in an amphibian. Combined with the results of field experiments in O. pumilio and A. femoralis (Nowakowski et al., 2013; Pašukonis et al., 2018, 2014a,b, 2016; Stynoski, 2009) and evidence of bearing maps (directional information) in other amphibians (Sinsch, 1990, 2014), we can conclude that poison frogs are likely to have an integrated cognitive map that includes both bearing and sketch mapping systems. Our study provides the first conclusive evidence of an integrated cognitive map in an amphibian.
An important breakthrough in the present study was maze design. Although the Morris water maze is the most powerful task to test the cognitive map of rodents, it does not work well with frogs because of strong thigmotaxis (Bilbo et al., 2000). Thigmotaxis, a common response of animals to the water maze, can inhibit successful learning (Bilbo et al., 2000; Day and Schallert, 1996; Vorhees and Williams, 2006). Furthermore, lesions and pharmacological disruption of the hippocampus promote thigmotaxis in rats (Devan et al., 1999; Hostetter and Thomas, 1967; Morris et al., 1982; Saucier and Cain, 1995). Together, these results indicate that, to solve the Morris water maze, an animal must first switch from thigmotaxis to open search. Therefore, one possible reason for the success of our maze might be that our modification helped to release frogs from thigmotaxis and allowed learning before overtraining effects occurred (e.g. loss of motivation, exhaustion) (Dickinson, 1998; Hosono et al., 2016).
Evidence suggests that an elaboration of the hippocampus in response to specific selective pressures correlates with the evolution of a sketch map (Healy, 2006; Jones et al., 2003; Sherry et al., 1992). Work from corvids, parids, and lineages of rock doves demonstrate that species, populations, or sexes that experience particularly strong demands on their ability to remember locations in a more flexible manner (e.g. caching food for later retrieval in order to survive the winter) will evolve neural and cognitive systems that enable a sketch map, which is typically associated with a larger relative hippocampal volume (Bond et al., 2007; Ebinger and Löhmer, 1984; Healy and Krebs, 1992; Rehkämper et al., 2008). One contribution of parallel map theory to the study of cognitive maps in mammals is to associate the bearing and sketch mapping systems to subdivisions of the hippocampal formation (Jacobs, 2003; Jacobs and Schenk, 2003). Yet, whether this model applies to other vertebrates with evidence of a sketch map, such as birds or poison frogs, requires further comparative analyses (Bingman and Muzio, 2017; Day, 2003). Nonetheless, evidence to date indicates that the medial pallium, which is the amphibian homolog of the mammalian hippocampus, contributes functionally to aspects of spatial navigation (Sotelo et al., 2016). Understanding the neural basis of the integrative cognitive map in a broader range of vertebrates could provide important insight into the constraints on, and evolutionary potential of, cognitive maps. 2ff7e9595c
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