Spatial decisions and cognitive strategies of monkeys and humans based on abstract spatial stimuli in rotation test

We showed previously that macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) could orient in real space using abstract visual stimuli presented on a computer screen. They made correct choices according to both spatial stimuli (designed as an abstract representation of a real space) and nonspatial stimuli (pictures la...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-09, Vol.106 (36), p.15478-15482
Main Authors: Nekovarova, Tereza, Nedvidek, Jan, Klement, Daniel, Bures, Jan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abstract spaces
Animal behavior
Animal cognition
Animals
Biological Sciences
Cognition - physiology
Comparative analysis
Cues
Geometric shapes
Humans
Job rotation
Landmarks
Macaca
Macaca mulatta
Macaca mulatta - physiology
Mental stimulation
Monkeys & apes
Orientation - physiology
Photic Stimulation
Rotation
Space Perception - physiology
Spatial Behavior - physiology
Species Specificity
Stripes
Touch screens
Training
Visual stimulation
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Summary:We showed previously that macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) could orient in real space using abstract visual stimuli presented on a computer screen. They made correct choices according to both spatial stimuli (designed as an abstract representation of a real space) and nonspatial stimuli (pictures lacking any inner configuration information). However, we suggested that there were differences in processing spatial and nonspatial stimuli. In the present experiment we show that monkeys could also use as a cue abstract spatial stimuli rotated with respect to the real response space. We studied the ability of monkeys to decode abstract spatial information provided in one spatial frame (computer screen) and to perform spatial choices in another spatial frame (touch panel separated from the screen). We analyzed how the monkeys were affected by the type of training, whether they perceived the stimuli as "spatial" or "nonspatial," and which cues they used to decode them. We compared humans to monkeys in a similar test to find out which cognitive strategy they used and whether they perceive spatial stimuli in the same way. We demonstrated that there were two possible strategies to solve the task, simple "fitting" ignoring rotations and "remapping," when the stimulus was represented as an "abstract space" per se.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0907053106