L15 - Spatial Learning Flashcards

1
Q

What is spatial navigation?

A

Ability to use space to reach a goal:

  • forging for food
  • finding a mate
  • locating a home
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2
Q

Geometric Information

A
Encoding scalar (magnitude) and vector (mag and direction) properties
e.g. distance, direction and length

Allows you to map out shape of the env

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3
Q

Featural Information

A

Encoding surface marking and form
E.g. colour, pattern and shape

Position land marks on a cognitive map

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4
Q

Spatial Cues, geometric and featural information experiment

Cheng 1986

A

3 black walls one white wall
- Rat in the area
- Food in the top right corner
- Can encode location of the food in terms of geometrical and featural info
○ Geometrical - in the corner where long wall is on the left and short wall that is on the right,
○ Featural - located in the corner that is black and white
- In a rectangular area you have 2 geometrically equivalent corners
- Also have 2 featural corners

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5
Q

Cheng 1986

What happens if you disorientate the rat?

A

Use the cues that are more salient to reorientate themselves
○ Geometric cues are more salient, when you put them back into the arena half will go to correct corner, the other half will show geometric confusion and go to the other corner

  • Confusing as they are geometrically symmetrical but featurally distinct

□ After one trial they only learnt geometric cues not featural
□ When disorientated they rely on geometric cues

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6
Q

What did Hermer and Spelke (1996) find?

A

Children at 24 months confuse geometrically symmetrical corners

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7
Q

What is allocentric spatial language?

A

Using featural information to break the geometric symmetry

- being able to describe things to an objective framework

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8
Q

Why might geometry prevail over featural reorientation?

A

There may be a (separate) geometric module in the brain:

  • exclusively encode shape information
  • Stored separately from any landmark information
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9
Q

Evolutionary explanation as to why geometry prevails

Not testable

A

When searching for food and shelter, they always stay the same, colour of a forest can change

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10
Q

How is a geometric module different from a cognitive map?

A

GM - idea of a region of the brain purely for geometric info

Cognitive map- forming a mental representation of an env as you go out in life

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11
Q

Roberts and Pearce (1999)

Water maze experiment (can’t see what is below water)

Design:

A

Cues around the pool so they want to get to the platform and stay dry

  • When they find it on the first trial they learn where it is for the next trial and use cues to find it again (1 trial)
  • In the blocked group we a training rats to learn using a beacon, landmark conditioned at the goal (8 trials)
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12
Q

Roberts and Pearce (1999)

Removing beacon: Findings

A

Shorter amount of time means you have learnt it better.

Time spent in quadrant is very low in blocked group - can’t find it well

control groups can use the cue to find the goal

Landmarks can block other landmarks - competing CSs

Rules governing space link to rule of associative learning

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13
Q

Pearce et al (2001)

Geometric module testing

Design

A

Phase one block group learn beacon relationship

phase two: all groups introduced to beacon and corner shape

Corner + beacon, with the corner cue you learn platform is located

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14
Q

Pearce et al:

Get rid of beacon, keep corner Findings

A

No blocking!
- They have learnt in second phase, phase 1 training has failed
- The lack of blocking isn’t due to lack of learning in phase one
○ They do have good learning, can find it based on the beacon
○ Not sufficient to block the shape

Support for geometric module? - learning about features isn’t able to block geometry - separate!

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15
Q

Alternative explanation to Pearce findings

A

Geometric cues are more salient to finding a platform

Just like taste for food

Using parallelogram and obtuse angles can lead to blocking

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16
Q

Why might place navigation be located in the brain?

A

Select cells in the hippocampus that fire only when in a particular location of a familiar environment - place cell

Neural candidate for cognitive map, detecting an animals location in space

17
Q

Morris et al (1982)

Place navigation and the hippocampus

A

If you lesion the hippocampus you get a very selective impairment in place navigation

Hippocampus lesions never get to the level of controls, learn rough area but not exact point.

18
Q

What was Morris’s control with his experiment?

A

Added a beacon and both rats could find

It isn’t due to lack of motivation or motor impairment, inability to do so is to learn relationship relative to cues

Flips it back and lesion rats perform poorly again

19
Q

Maguire et al (1998)

Place navigation and the hippocampus - humans

A

Virtual reality task:

Allowed to explore then asked to navigate from one point to another.

Found activation of the right hippocampus correlates with accuracy of navigation (in contrast to instruction- don’t get activation if given instructions)

20
Q

What did maguire (2000) discover about taxi drivers and hippocampus?

A

Increased hippocampal volume London taxi drivers compared with control subjective

Time spent taxicap driving was positively correlated with right hippocampus volume

21
Q

What is Williams Syndrome?

A

A genetic disorder that leads to developmental abnormalities

Very bad spatial learning and memory

Genetic disorder leads to abnormal formation of the hippocampus

22
Q

Age related decline leads to …

dementia

A

spatial learning deficits

due to hippocampal atrpohy and pathological damage

23
Q

Dietary intake: impact on spatial learning

A

Energy rich diets: high fat high sugar can lead to spatial learning impairment

Due to hippocampal inflammation

24
Q

Do williams syndrome show geometric confusion

A

No - they perform better on spatial disorientation tasks, no ability to use geometry so use featural system and go to the correct corner

Same for High sugar rats, use features instead - specific type of geometric impairment!