Raccourci et détour chez le rat : durée, vitesse et longueur des parcours

Abstract

Summary Rats previously conditioned to approach a local eue in order to find their food, adopt the same orientation from an other starting place. But if then they are given a choice between two paths of different lengths to reach the goal, very soon they choose the shorter one, even if it is necessary to go away from the local eue when doing so. The role played by distance and time of runs in such a choice is discussed.

Spatial cognitive maps in animals: New hypotheses on their structure and neural mechanisms.

“…The prototypic situation (Tolman & Honzik, 1930; see also Vauclair, 1980a) consists of blocking a path previously used to reach a baited goal to require the animal to reorganize its trajectory under these altered circumstances. It is generally observed that animals quickly select the next most appropriate path leading to the goal (see also Blancheteau & Le Lorec, 1972;.…”

“…Previous experiments with rats (Maier, 1929;Tolman & Honzik, 1930), cats (Krushinskii, 1970), dogs (Wyrwicka, 1959), and primates (Kohler, 1925) have shown that path selection is closely dependent on both length and directionality of the available paths. Attempts to dissociate the role of these two parameters (Blancheteau & Le Lorec, 1972) demonstrate that each parameter (i.e., length or directionality) can separately influence rats' path selection. More recent studies have confirmed this result for dogs and for cats (Chapuis et al, 1983;Poucet et al, 1983).…”

A Detour Task in Four Species of Fishes

“…Detour abilities have been studied in several species of non-human mammals using different setups (primates: Köhler, 1925a , b ; dogs: Wyrwicka, 1959 ; Chapuis et al, 1983 ; Fiset et al, 2007 ; cats: Poucet et al, 1983 ; horses: Baragli et al, 2011 ; hamsters: Vauclair, 1980 ; Chapuis and Scardigli, 1993 ; rats: Blancheteau and Le Lorec, 1972 ; marsupials: Wynne and Leguet, 2004 ). Moreover, the ability to solve detour problems has been well demonstrated in birds ( Regolin et al, 1995a , b ; Zucca et al, 2005 ).…”