Dataset Information

Navigable Space and Traversable Edges Differentially Influence Reorientation in Sighted and Blind Mice.

ABSTRACT: Reorientation enables navigators to regain their bearings after becoming lost. Disoriented individuals primarily reorient themselves using the geometry of a layout, even when other informative cues, such as landmarks, are present. Yet the specific strategies that animals use to determine geometry are unclear. Moreover, because vision allows subjects to rapidly form precise representations of objects and background, it is unknown whether it has a deterministic role in the use of geometry. In this study, we tested sighted and congenitally blind mice (Ns = 8-11) in various settings in which global shape parameters were manipulated. Results indicated that the navigational affordances of the context-the traversable space-promote sampling of boundaries, which determines the effective use of geometric strategies in both sighted and blind mice. However, blind animals can also effectively reorient themselves using 3D edges by extensively patrolling the borders, even when the traversable space is not limited by these boundaries.

SUBMITTER: Normandin ME

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9343889 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Navigable Space and Traversable Edges Differentially Influence Reorientation in Sighted and Blind Mice.

Normandin Marc E ME Garza Maria C MC Ramos-Alvarez Manuel Miguel MM Julian Joshua B JB Eresanara Tuoyo T Punjaala Nishanth N Vasquez Juan H JH Lopez Matthew R MR Muzzio Isabel A IA

Psychological science 20220510 6

Reorientation enables navigators to regain their bearings after becoming lost. Disoriented individuals primarily reorient themselves using the geometry of a layout, even when other informative cues, such as landmarks, are present. Yet the specific strategies that animals use to determine geometry are unclear. Moreover, because vision allows subjects to rapidly form precise representations of objects and background, it is unknown whether it has a deterministic role in the use of geometry. In this ...[more]

PMID: 35536866

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Project description:We have recently shown that vision is important to improve spatial auditory cognition. In this study, we investigate whether touch is as effective as vision to create a cognitive map of a soundscape. In particular, we tested whether the creation of a mental representation of a room, obtained through tactile exploration of a 3D model, can influence the perception of a complex auditory task in sighted people. We tested two groups of blindfolded sighted people - one experimental and one control group - in an auditory space bisection task. In the first group, the bisection task was performed three times: specifically, the participants explored with their hands the 3D tactile model of the room and were led along the perimeter of the room between the first and the second execution of the space bisection. Then, they were allowed to remove the blindfold for a few minutes and look at the room between the second and third execution of the space bisection. Instead, the control group repeated for two consecutive times the space bisection task without performing any environmental exploration in between. Considering the first execution as a baseline, we found an improvement in the precision after the tactile exploration of the 3D model. Interestingly, no additional gain was obtained when room observation followed the tactile exploration, suggesting that no additional gain was obtained by vision cues after spatial tactile cues were internalized. No improvement was found between the first and the second execution of the space bisection without environmental exploration in the control group, suggesting that the improvement was not due to task learning. Our results show that tactile information modulates the precision of an ongoing space auditory task as well as visual information. This suggests that cognitive maps elicited by touch may participate in cross-modal calibration and supra-modal representations of space that increase implicit knowledge about sound propagation.

Dataset Information

Navigable Space and Traversable Edges Differentially Influence Reorientation in Sighted and Blind Mice.

Publications

Navigable Space and Traversable Edges Differentially Influence Reorientation in Sighted and Blind Mice.

Similar Datasets

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