Visual cognition in cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis: discrimination, generalization, and amodal completion
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1
National Tsing Hua University, Department of Life Science, Taiwan
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2
National Tsing Hua University, Institute of Systems Neuroscience, Taiwan
Modern cephalopods are notably the most intelligent invertebrates. They are highly visual animals with keen vision for camouflage, predation, and finding mates. Despite extensive studies in the visual systems of cephalopods, little is known about their visual perception and cognition. In the present study, we investigated several visual cognitive processes in cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis, including discrimination, generalization, and amodal completion. Cuttlefish were trained to discriminate figures of shrimp and fish using the operant conditioning paradigm. The training procedure was conducted in the home tanks. The experimental apparatus was composed of two separated regions at one end of the tank, and cuttlefish had to enter the rewarding area and/or to strike the rewarding figure with their tentacles for food. After cuttlefish reached the learning criteria, a discrimination task was conducted, in which the non-rewarding figure was replaced with a novel figure (crab). In generalization tasks, several transformed versions of training figures, such as reduced size, sketch, contour, low contrast, and silhouette of the original shrimp and fish figures, were used. In the amodal completion task, the partial occluded images of the original figures were applied. The results showed that cuttlefish were capable of discriminating figures of fish, shrimp, and crab. In addition, they could generalize the small-scale, sketch and silhouette of the training figures and responded properly, though the response strength was lower than that in training and there existed individual differences in performance. Furthermore, cuttlefish could also recognize the partial occluded images of the training figures. These findings suggest that cuttlefish have the visual cognition of discrimination, generalization, and amodal completion. To our knowledge, this is the first time that aquatic invertebrates, such as cephalopods, have been demonstrated to equip with such high visual cognitive capabilities. Results from this research also provide insights into the visual processing mechanism of cephalopods.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC-98-2628-B-007-001-MY3 to CCC).
Keywords:
cephalopod,
occluded images,
operant conditioning,
Visual Perception,
Visual Processing
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation (see alternatives below as well)
Topic:
Sensory: Vision
Citation:
Chiao
C and
Lin
I
(2012). Visual cognition in cuttlefish Sepia pharaonis: discrimination, generalization, and amodal completion.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00084
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Received:
11 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Chuan-Chin Chiao, National Tsing Hua University, Department of Life Science, Hsinchu, 30013, Taiwan, ccchiao@life.nthu.edu.tw