Animals' reactions to novel objects vary not only with zoological taxa and their ecology but also in the types of presented stimuli, the context, and individual characteristics. Behavioral reactions can vary from extremely neophobic (avoiding novel objects) to extremely neophilic (intense exploration of novel objects); most often, a mixture of these behavioral patterns appears. In primates, reactions toward novel objects vary according to species, age, sex, population, and the types of objects. Most experiments in this field have used a free exploration design with food or non-food objects. Here, we tested the reactions of captive male rhesus macaques using various stimuli, motivation levels, rewards, and time limits. We found that the monkeys explored and manipulated novel objects in various contexts, with little evidence of a neophobic response; however, environment, types of stimuli, and other parameters of the test can significantly affect monkeys' reactions.

The role of rodent hippocampus has been intensively studied in different cognitive tasks. However, its role in discrimination of objects remains controversial due to conflicting findings. We tested whether the number and type of features available for the identification of objects might affect the strategy (hippocampal-independent vs. hippocampal-dependent) that rats adopt to solve object discrimination tasks. We trained rats to discriminate 2D visual objects presented on a computer screen. The objects were defined either by their shape only or by multiple-features (a combination of filling pattern and brightness in addition to the shape). Our data showed that objects displayed as simple geometric shapes are not discriminated by trained rats after their hippocampi had been bilaterally inactivated by the GABAA-agonist muscimol. On the other hand, objects containing a specific combination of non-geometric features in addition to the shape are discriminated even without the hippocampus. Our results suggest that the involvement of the hippocampus in visual object discrimination depends on the abundance of object's features.

The effectivity of learning by playing serious games is increasingly subject to research, but information about how these games should actually be used in classes is limited. In this explorative study with between-subject design (N=166; high school students), we investigated the effectivity of playing two different micro-games in two different ways. After an expository lecture, either students played a game individually at computers (“individual play”), or the teacher played it, while showing it to the class on a projector and prompting the students on how to proceed with the game (“collective play”). Results indicated that the two modes of play were nearly comparable as concerns immediate and one month delayed learning gains, as well as subjective evaluation of educational experience. There were only two notable differences. First, immediate test scores for factual questions, but not transfer questions, for one of the games were higher for the individual play (medium effect size). Second, this difference was accompanied by a higher enjoyment in the better performing group (small to medium effect size). The results support the idea that collective play, which is easier to implement in schools, is a method that should be considered in educational design and future research.

The active place avoidance task is used in the research of spatial cognition. Rats are trained on a rotating arena to avoid an aversive stimulus delivered in a part of the room while being transported toward it by the arena rotation. The task tests the ability of rats to navigate with respect to distal cues in the room and to ignore confusing cues on the arena. The demand for cue segregation makes the task suitable for studying neural mechanisms responsible for cognitive coordination. An incidental observation made in our laboratory implied that overtrained rats may be able to solve the task without the room-bound cues. The aim of this study was to test this observation. The room-bound cues were hidden by switching off the lights. Rats trained only in darkness did not learn the task at all. Rats that were initially pre-trained in light performed considerably better. In a few exceptional dark sessions they even reached the level of performance observed in light. The rats needed the aversive stimuli to keep off the to-be-avoided sector. Without them, they continued their behavior, but with no spatial relationship to the to-be-avoided sector. We conclude that rats are able to solve the place avoidance task without the room-bound cues, but not as efficiently as in their presence.

Prazosin, an alpha(1)-adrenoceptor antagonist, is well known for its depressant effect on motivation and motor activity, while it has no effect on retention of spatial behavior in several tasks, e.g. in the Morris water maze and radial arm maze. The role of alpha(1)-adrenoceptors in operant tasks with stimulus-controlled behavior has not yet been tested. The present study investigated the effect of prazosin on the modulation of overall motor activity and on cognitive performance in a spatial operant task called object-position recognition task, where operant behavior (lever pressing) was controlled by spatial stimuli displayed on a computer screen. This task has been previously showed to be hippocampal-dependent. Pre-test injection of prazosin at the dose of 3 mg/kg decreased the responding rate, while it did not affect the recognition of object's position. In conclusion, we validated the new cognitive test with a drug with known pharmacological effects on behavior and confirmed the depressant effect of prazosin on motor activity and no effect on retrieval of spatial memory in the hippocampal-dependent operant task.

We studied the ability of monkeys and humans to orient in one spatial frame ("response frame") according to abstract spatial stimuli presented in another spatial frame ("stimulus frame"). The stimuli were designed as simple maps of the "response space". We studied how the transformations of these stimuli affected the performance. The subjects were trained to choose a particular position in the response frame - either on a touch screen (monkeys) or on a keyboard (humans) - according to schematic spatial stimuli presented on the stimulus screen. The monkeys responded by touching one of four circles shown in corners of a rectangle displayed on the touch screen. The correct position was signaled by the stimulus ("map") presented on the stimulus screen. The map was a complementary rectangle, but only with one circle shown ("pointer"). The position of this circle indicated the correct position in the response frame. In the first experiment we only manipulated stimuli presented on the computer screen. The "map" was originally shown in the same position and orientation as the "response pattern" but later the position and the rotation of the map on the screen were changing. Such transformations of the stimuli allow us to study the mental operations that the animals performed and how particular mental transformations mutually differed. In the second experiment we tested whether the monkeys relied more on stimuli presented on the screen or on the surrounding stable environment and objects. We compared the performance of animals in tasks with rotated virtual maps in a stable surrounding environment with the performance in tasks where we rotated the surrounding frame (computer monitor), whereas the stimuli on the screen remained stable. In the third experiment we tested human subjects in analogous tests to compare the ability and cognitive strategies of monkeys and humans in this task. We showed that the mental strategies that monkeys used for orientation in one spatial frame according to the map presented in the other spatial frame depended on the type of stimulus manipulation. We demonstrated that for monkeys there was a difference between solving "mental rotation" and "mental translocation" in this experimental design. We showed that humans were able both to mentally rotate and translocate the displayed stimuli. However, the mental rotation was more difficult than mental translocation also for them. These experiments help us to understand how the monkeys perceive the abstract spatial information, create the representation of space and how they transform the information about the position obtained from one spatial frame into another. The comparison between humans and monkeys allows us to study this cognitive ability in phylogeny.

Digital games are believed by many to be instructionally effective in the context of the formal schooling system; however, studies investigating this idea empirically are limited and their outcomes are often inconclusive and/or difficult to interpret. Part of the problem is caused by the fact that when conducting a study in an authentic environment, i.e., in a school, as opposed to a laboratory, researchers encounter many common, yet unspoken, technical pitfalls. This paper verbalizes some of these pitfalls and organizes them into 6 Recommendations for “best practice” in field studies on the instructional effectiveness of digital game-based learning (DGBL). These recommendations are based on experience gained during five DGBL studies on more than 700 subjects in the context of secondary education and can be useful to other researchers willing to run similar studies.

Rat hippocampus plays a crucial role in many spatial tasks, including recognition of position of objects, which can be approached and explored. Whether hippocampus is also necessary for recognizing positions of objects located in an inaccessible part of the environment remains unclear. To address this question, we conditioned rats to press a lever when an object displayed on a distant computer screen was in a particular position (“reward position”) and not to press the lever when the object was in other positions (“nonreward positions”). After the rats had reached an asymptotic performance, the role of the dorsal hippocampus was assessed by blocking its activity with muscimol. The rats without functional dorsal hippocampus did not discriminate the reward position from the nonreward positions. Then the same rats were trained to discriminate light and dark conditions. The hippocampal inactivation did not disrupt the ability to discriminate these two conditions. It indicated that the inactivation itself had no major effect on the operant behavior and its control by visual stimuli. We conclude that rats use dorsal hippocampus for recognizing positions of objects located in an inaccessible part of the environment. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The active place avoidance task is used for testing cognitive abilities in rats. A rat, placed on a rotating circular arena, should avoid an unmarked sector defined with respect to stable extra-arena cues. We hypothesized that the inertial stimuli generated by the arena rotation may contribute to the performance in the task. These stimuli provide permanent information to the rat concerning changes in its position with respect to the extra-arena cues, it means to the reference frame in which the to-be-avoided sector is defined. To test the hypothesis, we trained one group of rats on a stable arena while extra-arena cues rotated around the arena. This eliminated the inertial stimuli generated by the arena rotation while preserving other aspects of the task. Six out of seven rats from this group did not learn this modified task. The remaining rat learned it equally well as rats from a control group learned the standard active place avoidance task. After six days of training, we changed the tasks between the groups. The control rats solved the modified task as well as the standard task. We conclude that the inertial stimuli generated by the arena rotation are important for acquisition of the active place avoidance task but not for performance once the task has been mastered. We suggest that rats must perceive the distal extra-arena cues as stable in order to associate the position of the to-be-avoided sector with these cues.

Curricular schooling can benefit from the usage of educational computer games, but it is difficult to integrate them in the formal schooling system. Here, we investigate one possible approach to this integration, which capitalizes on using a micro-game that can be played with a teacher's guidance as a supplement after a traditional expository lecture followed by a debriefing. The game's purpose is to reinforce and integrate part of the knowledge learnt during the lecture. We investigated feasibility of this approach in a quasi-experimental study in 70 min long seminars on the topic of animal learning at 5 classes at 4 different high-schools in the Czech Republic. Each class was divided to two groups randomly. After an expository lecture, the game group played a game called Orbis Pictus Bestialis while the control group received an extra lecture that used media-rich materials. The time allotment was the same in both groups. We investigated the immediate and one month delayed effects of the game on students' knowledge reinforced and integrated by the game as well as on knowledge learnt during the expository lecture but not strengthened by the game. We also investigated students' overall appeal towards the seminar and its perceived educational value. Data from 100 students were analysed. The results showed that a) the game-playing is comparable to the traditional form of teaching concerning immediate knowledge gains and has a significant medium positive effect size regarding retention, b) the game-playing is not detrimental to information transmitted in the expository lecture but not strengthened by the game, c) perceived educational value and the overall appeal were high in the game group, nevertheless the perceived educational value was slightly lower in the game group comparing to the traditional group. Our results suggest that the proposed approach of harnessing educational computer games at high-schools is promising.

We developed two spatial tasks for rats employing computer monitor for stimuli presentation. Both tasks were aimed for testing rats’ ability to recognize position of a distant object. In the first task the object was stationary except moments when it jumped from one position to another. In the second task it moved continuously across the screen. Rats were trained in an operant chamber located in front of the monitor. They responded to the object position by pressing a lever for food reward. Responses were reinforced when the object was displayed in a to-be-recognized position in the first task and when it was passing through a to-be-recognized region in the second task. The to-be-recognized position as well as the to-be-recognized region had to be determined with respect to surrounding orientation cues. Responding rate of well trained rats negatively depended on the distance between the object and the to-be-recognized position/region. In the first task this relationship was apparent during a short time after the object changed its position and it held even for newly presented unfamiliar positions of the object. We conclude that in both tasks the rats recognize position of the object by estimating distance between the object and the to-be-recognized position/region. We also analyzed contribution of timing behavior to the solution of the second task.

The paper deals with point processes in space and time and the problem of filtering. Real data monitoring the spiking activity of a place cell of hippocampus of a rat moving in an environment are evaluated. Two approaches to the modelling and methodology are discussed. The first one (known from literature) is based on recursive equations which enable to describe an adaptive system. Sequential Monte Carlo methods including particle filter algorithm are available for the solution. The second approach makes use of a continuous time shot‐noise Cox point process model. The inference of the driving intensity leads to a nonlinear filtering problem. Parametric models support the solution by means of the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, moreover the Cox model enables to detect adaptivness. Model selection is discussed, numerical results are presented and interpreted. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We showed previously that macaque monkeys (Macaca mulatta) could orient in real space using abstract visual stimuli presented on a computer screen. They made correct choices according to both spatial stimuli (designed as an abstract representation of a real space) and nonspatial stimuli (pictures lacking any inner configuration information). However, we suggested that there were differences in processing spatial and nonspatial stimuli. In the present experiment we show that monkeys could also use as a cue abstract spatial stimuli rotated with respect to the real response space. We studied the ability of monkeys to decode abstract spatial information provided in one spatial frame (computer screen) and to perform spatial choices in another spatial frame (touch panel separated from the screen). We analyzed how the monkeys were affected by the type of training, whether they perceived the stimuli as "spatial" or "nonspatial," and which cues they used to decode them. We compared humans to monkeys in a similar test to find out which cognitive strategy they used and whether they perceive spatial stimuli in the same way. We demonstrated that there were two possible strategies to solve the task, simple "fitting" ignoring rotations and "remapping," when the stimulus was represented as an "abstract space" per se.

The paper is a case study monitoring the spiking activity of a place cell of hippocampus of a rat moving in an arena. Real data are evaluated using a new statistical methodology. Experimentally observed overdispersion suggests a doubly stochastic spatio‐temporal point process model of the time of spikes and the location of the rat. The inference of the driving intensity leads to a nonlinear filtering problem. Jump processes are used as parametric models of the driving intensity which enables the solution of the filtering problem by means of Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. Simultaneously the parameters of the model are estimated. Model selection, numerical results and receptive field plasticity are discussed.

Spatial tasks in rodents are commonly used to study general mechanisms of cognition. We review two groups of novel spatial tasks for rodents and discuss how they can extend our understanding of mechanisms of spatial cognition. The first group represents spatial tasks in which the subject does not locomote. Locomotion influences neural activity in brain structures important for spatial cognition. The tasks belonging to the first group make it possible to study cognitive processes without the interfering impact of locomotion. The second group represents tasks in which the subject approaches or avoids a moving object. Despite this topic is intensively studied in various animal species, little attention has been paid to it in rodents. Both groups of the tasks are powerful tools for addressing novel questions about rodent cognition.

Description It has been demonstrated that operant behavior can be controlled by spatial stimuli. In one of our experiment, rats were conditioned to press a lever for reward when a moving object was passing through a particular region of the experimental room (unpublished data). Although the stimulus was changing smoothly, the transitions between rewarded and non-rewarded condition were sudden. Consequently the animals anticipated the arrival to the rewarded zone by responding in its vicinity.

We developed a novel behavioral task in which rats learn to recognize the configuration of objects in an animated scene displayed on a computer screen. The scene consisted of a moving bar and a stationary rectangle. Rats deprived of food were trained to press a lever for reward in a small chamber located in front of the screen. Lever presses were rewarded only when the bar was at the rectangle. Rats anticipated the reward by gradually increasing frequency of lever pressing as the bar approached the rectangle. Control experiments showed that neither the timing nor the discrimination of rewarded and non-rewarded periods as two discrete conditions explain behavior of the rat. Because the changes in the scene were generated by movement of the object, the presented task could be used for studying neural structures involved in spatial behavior of rats using virtual reality technology.