Document type
ArticleVersion
Published versionPublication date
All rights reserved
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/53867
Landmark vs. geometry learning: Explaining female rats' selective preference for a landmark
Journal Title
Director/Tutor
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Related resource
Abstract
Rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform, whose location was defined in terms of two sources of information, a landmark outside the pool and a particular corner of the pool. Subsequent test trials without the platform pitted these two sources of information against one another. In Experiment 1 this test revealed a clear, although selective, sex difference. As in previous experiments, females spent more time in an area of the pool that corresponded to the landmark, but here only when it was a cone but not when it was a pyramid. Males, on the other hand, always spent more time in the distinctive corner of the pool. Experiments 2 and 3 were only with female rats. In Experiment 2 two identical shaped cylinders were used as landmark cues (one plain white and the other vertically patterned with four different patterns). The results of the preference test revealed that only the females trained and tested with the plain cylinder spent more time in the area of the pool that corresponded to the landmark than in the distinctive corner of the pool. Finally, Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiment 2 while eliminating an alternative explanation in terms of differential contrast between the two cylinders and the black curtain.
Subject (English)
Citation
Citation
TORRES DOMÍNGUEZ, Marta Natalia, et al. Landmark vs. geometry learning: Explaining female rats' selective preference for a landmark. Psicologica. vol. 35. Vol. 1, num. 81-100, pags. 2013. ISSN 0211-2159. [consulted: 12 of August of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/53867