Configural processing of odor mixture: Does the learning of elements prevent the perception of configuration in the newborn rabbit?

Romagny, Sébastien; Thomas‐Danguin, Thierry; Coureaud, Gérard

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.02.019

Cited by 7 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…The present results confirm that, in newborn rabbits, in addition to its releasing function of sucking-related movements involved in locating and orally seizing of maternal nipples (Coureaud, 2001;Coureaud et al, 2007;Moncomble et al, 2005;Schaal et al, 2003), the MP functions also as an unconditioned stimulus that promotes the rapid acquisition of any associated odour stimulus, be it a single odorant as here (see also Charra et al, 2013;Coureaud, Languille, et al, 2009;Coureaud, Moncomble, et al, 2006;Coureaud et al, 2014) or a more or less complex mixture of odorants (Coureaud, Hamdani, et al, 2009;Coureaud, Thomas-Danguin, et al, 2008;Coureaud et al, 2014;Romagny et al, 2015;Sinding et al, 2013Sinding et al, , 2011. Nevertheless, the present study clearly goes further concerning this reinforcing action of the MP by providing several new findings related to its adaptive effect on neonatal feeding.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…The behavioural assay consisted of an orocephalic activation test (e.g. Charra et al, 2013;Coureaud, Moncomble, et al, 2006;Coureaud et al, 2002Coureaud et al, , 2014Romagny et al 2015;Schaal et al, 2003;Sinding et al, 2011) during which each pup was individually immobilized in one gloved hand of the experimenter, its head being left free (Fig. 1).…”

Section: Behavioural Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the MP allows pups to learn a mixture of several odorants during a single conditioning session, or distinct odorants encountered during successive conditionings (e.g. Coureaud, Hamdani, Schaal, & Thomas-Danguin, 2009;Coureaud, Thomas-Danguin, Le Berre, & Schaal, 2008;Coureaud, Thomas-Danguin, Wilson, & Ferreira, 2014;Romagny, Thomas-Danguin, & Coureaud, 2015;Sinding et al, 2013;Sinding, Thomas-Danguin, Crepeaux, Schaal, & Coureaud, 2011). In other words, the MP is not only a releaser of nipple-search behaviour but also a potent reinforcing agent for neonatal odour learning.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mammary pheromone-induced odour learning influences sucking behaviour and milk intake in the newborn rabbit

2016

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Newborn rabbits, Oryctolagus cuniculus, locate their mother's nipples through typical orocephalic movements elicited by odour stimuli, in particular by the mammary pheromone (MP). The MP also promotes neonatal odour learning: after single pairing with the MP, an initially neutral odorant becomes able to elicit sucking-related head-searching/oral-grasping movements. However, the behavioural significance of the MP-induced odour learning remains poorly understood. We carried out three experiments to explore its influence on milk intake and compare its consequences with those resulting from nursing-induced conditioning. First, pups conditioned to an odorant by pairing with the MP on postnatal days 2-3 were shown to gain more milk on day 4 during nursing by a female carrying the conditioned odorant along the nipple lines. Second, surprisingly, nursing-induced odour learning failed to induce this effect. We therefore determined whether the location of the conditioned odorant on or around the nipples modified the pups' milk intake: it appeared that after nursing-induced conditioning, the pups gained more milk when the conditioned odorant was applied directly on the nipples. Moreover, several results showed that pups could learn different odorants during successive days of conditioning, and that the more recently acquired cue was the most influential on milk intake. This study suggests that the MP plays a critical role to ensure sucking performance in newborn rabbits, not only through its releasing effect, but also through its ability to promote the acquisition of novel odours carried by the mother. (C) 2015 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Behavioural Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Mammary pheromone-induced odour learning influences sucking behaviour and milk intake in the newborn rabbit

2016

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“…Another study showed that in this binary AB mixture, the ratio of components is a critical factor influencing neonatal perception: whereas the AB mixture (30/70 v/v ratio of A/B) was weak configurally perceived, the A’B’ mixture (68/32 ratio of A/B) was perceived elementally since after learning a single odorant, pups responded to A’B’ (Coureaud, Gibaud, Berre, Schaal, & Thomas‐Danguin, ). Similar results have been observed with a chemically more complex mixture of six odorants (RC mixture), which was found to be perceived weak configurally at a particular ratio of the components (Romagny, Thomas‐Danguin, & Coureaud, , ; Sinding et al, ). Thus, in certain binary and senary mixtures, newborn rabbits perceive more than the simple odor qualities of their elements, while in other mixtures of the same chemical complexity, they perceive only the element odors.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Developmental changes in elemental and configural perception of odor mixtures in young rabbits

Coureaud

Letagneaux

Thomas‐Danguin

et al. 2019

Developmental Psychobiology

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Development can change the way organisms represent their environment and affect their behavior. In vision, complex stimuli are treated as the sum of their elements (elemental perception) in children or as a whole (configural perception) in adults. However, the influence of development in elemental/configural perception has never been tested in olfaction. Here we explored this issue in young rabbits, which are known to perceive during the neonatal period certain binary odor mixtures elementally and others weak configurally. Using conditioning and behavioral testing procedures, we set out six experiments evaluating the putative evolution of their odor perception between birth and weaning. Results highlighted that between postnatal days 2 and 9 the perception of an initially weak configural mixture became robust configural while that of two elemental mixtures did not. Additional switches from elemental to configural perception were observed at postnatal day 24. The use of a chemically more complex senary mixture resulted also in a shift from weak to robust configural perception between postnatal days 2 and 9. Thus, the perception of certain odor mixtures may rapidly evolve toward a more holistic mode in young rabbits, which may help simplifying their representation of the environment once out of the nest. K E Y W O R D Sbehavior, configural perception, European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), newborn, odor mixture, olfaction, weaning

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“…We note that, unlike the other model variants, the Nearest-Neighbor model has the interesting property of reducing to a 'fractional overlap' rule as the number of components becomes large, as observed in mixture discriminability studies in humans [Bushdid et al, 2014] and other mammals [Romagny et al, 2015]. In other words, for large N, the same equations predict that the response probability will be roughly determined by the fraction of components in the test stimulus which are identical to components in the S + .…”

Section: /20mentioning

confidence: 83%

Molecular Nearest Neighbors Determine Generalization of Odorant Mixtures

Dai

Der-Ghazarian

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Most natural odors arise from mixtures of multiple odorants. Some such mixtures are perceived "elementally", with each odorant component clearly identifiable, while others are perceived "configurally", with the mixture adopting a perceptual quality distinct from any of the components. While the perceptual similarity of two mixtures is presumably related in some way to the similarity of the corresponding components, given the elemental/configural dichotomy it is unclear if any formal principle can be used to predict mixture similarity. To investigate this problem, we trained mice to respond to a binary reference mixture of structurally similar odorants (S + ) and then tested generalization of this response to other structurally related binary test mixtures. Across 5 experiments, we parametrically varied these mixtures in distinct ways to test candidate models for the perceptual similarity of mixtures. The best-performing model predicted behavioral responses by considering, for each component of the S + , only the similarity of the most structurally similar ("nearest neighbor") component of each test mixture. We conclude that for mixture generalization tasks the olfactory system may deemphasize or discard information about mixture components not perceptually "near" enough to any of those in the S + , consistent with a sparse and elemental rule for perception of structurally-related binary mixtures.

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Configural processing of odor mixture: Does the learning of elements prevent the perception of configuration in the newborn rabbit?

Cited by 7 publications

References 46 publications

Mammary pheromone-induced odour learning influences sucking behaviour and milk intake in the newborn rabbit

Mammary pheromone-induced odour learning influences sucking behaviour and milk intake in the newborn rabbit

Developmental changes in elemental and configural perception of odor mixtures in young rabbits

Molecular Nearest Neighbors Determine Generalization of Odorant Mixtures

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