Aguilar-Latorre Alejandra, Romera-Nicolás Víctor, Gimeno Elisabet, Chamizo V D
Departament de Cognició, Desenvolupament i Psicologia de l'Educació, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Institut de Neurociències, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 9;13:838407. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.838407. eCollection 2022.
There is much evidence, both in humans and rodents, that while navigating males tend to use geometric information whereas females rely more on landmarks. The present work attempts to alter the geometry bias in female rats. In Experiment 1 three groups of female 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. On a subsequent test trial with the triangular pool and no landmark, females with prior experience with two other pool shapes-with a kite-shaped pool and with a rectangular-shaped pool (Group Long Previous Experience, LPE), were significantly more accurate than control rats without such prior experience (Group No Previous Experience, NPE). Rats with a short previous experience-with the rectangular-shaped pool only (Group Short Previous Experience, SPE) did not differ from Group NPE. These results suggest that the previous experience with different shaped-pools could counteract the geometry bias in female rats. Then, Experiment 2A directly compared the performance of LPE males and females of Experiment 1, although conducting several test trials (i.e., shape, landmark, and preference). The differences between males and females disappeared in the three tests. Moreover, in a final test trial both males and females could identify the correct corner in an incomplete pool by its local, instead of global, properties. Finally, Experiment 2B compared the performance of NPE rats, males and females, of Experiment 1. On the test trial with the triangular pool and no landmark, males were significantly more accurate than females. The results are explained in the framework of selective attention.
在人类和啮齿动物中都有大量证据表明，在导航时雄性倾向于使用几何信息，而雌性则更多地依赖地标。目前的研究试图改变雌性大鼠的几何偏向。在实验1中，三组雌性大鼠在一个三角形水池中接受训练，以找到一个隐藏的平台，该平台的位置由两种信息源确定，一种是水池外的地标，另一种是水池的特定角落。在随后的无地标三角形水池测试试验中，之前有过其他两种水池形状（风筝形水池和矩形水池）经验的雌性大鼠（长期先前经验组，LPE）比没有这种先前经验的对照大鼠（无先前经验组，NPE）准确性显著更高。只有矩形水池先前经验较短的大鼠（短期先前经验组，SPE）与NPE组没有差异。这些结果表明，不同形状水池的先前经验可以抵消雌性大鼠的几何偏向。然后，实验2A直接比较了实验1中LPE雄性和雌性的表现，尽管进行了几次测试试验（即形状、地标和偏好）。在这三项测试中，雄性和雌性之间的差异消失了。此外，在最后的测试试验中，雄性和雌性都可以通过局部而非全局属性在不完整的水池中识别出正确的角落。最后，实验2B比较了实验1中NPE大鼠（雄性和雌性）的表现。在无地标三角形水池测试试验中，雄性比雌性准确性显著更高。这些结果在选择性注意的框架内得到了解释。
