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ERIC Number: EJ724166
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2005-Sep
Pages: 13
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0010-0277
EISSN: N/A
Animals' Use of Landmarks and Metric Information to Reorient: Effects of the Size of the Experimental Space
Sovrano, Valeria Anna; Bisazza, Angelo; Vallortigara, Giorgio
Cognition, v97 n2 p121-133 Sep 2005
Disoriented children could use geometric information in combination with landmark information to reorient themselves in large but not in small experimental spaces. We tested fish in the same task and found that they were able to conjoin geometric and non-geometric (landmark) information to reorient themselves in both the large and the small space used. Moreover, fish proved able to reorient immediately when dislocated from a large to a small experimental space and vice versa, suggesting that they encoded the relative rather than the absolute metrics of the environment. However, fish tended to make relatively more errors based on geometric information when transfer occurred from a small to a large space, and to make relatively more errors based on landmark information when transfer occurred from a large to a small space. The hypothesis is discussed that organisms are prepared to use only distant featural information as landmarks.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A