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Abstract:
Several parameters of the environment are mapped out by
animals and man in spatial representation. Little is known,
however, about the properties and relationships among landmarks and
surfaces the animals use while navigating. For example, humans and
rats rely on the geometry of surfaces to reorient in space. By
contrast, local features are used only by human adults in order to
optimize their orientation. The use of both geometrical and local
spatial information would be a specificity of adult humans' spatial
cognitive abilities. In the present study, we tested Rhesus monkeys
in a rectangular room without distinctive featural information. The
monkey, after beeing desoriented, had to retrieve a food reward
beforehand indicated to him in one of the four corners of the room.
So as to distinguish the correct corner from its rotational
equivalent corner (180deg. rotation from the target through the
center), the animal had to rely on the large-scale geometry and/or
on the local features of the room. Our preliminary results indicate
that, like rats and humans, rhesus monkeys predominantly rely on
the geometric properties of the environment to reorient in space.
However, they are also able to use both geometrical and featural
information. Such an ability had never been demonstrated in a
non-human species.
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