Is there a geometric module in the rats spatial representation?
Department of Psychology University of Durham Over the past 20 years a considerable body of research has investigated how animals orient within their environment. Particular attention has been paid to whether animals use geometric cues to orient and, if they do, how these cues are integrated into a representation of space. Cheng (1986) trained rats to find food hidden in one corner of a rectangular arena. Even though the corner had a distinctive landmark in it, the rats made rotational errors by searching in the diametrically opposite corner. Cheng argued that these errors occurred because rats use the geometric properties of the arena to form a representation of the overall rectangular shape and then use this representation to identify where to search for food. Learning about what landmarks look like is said to take place separately from learning about geometric cues. These findings have been replicated with a variety of species which has lead a number of authors to conclude that they
