Commins, Sean and Fey, Dirk (2019) Understanding the role of distance, direction and cue salience in an associative model of landmark learning. Scientific Reports, 9 (2026). ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

Navigation and spatial memory relies on the ability to use and recall environmental landmarks relative to important locations. Such learning is thought to result from the strengthening of associations between the goal location and environmental cues. Factors that contribute to the strength of this association include cue stability, saliency and cue location. Here we combine an autoregressive random walk model, that describes goal-directed swimming behaviour, with an associative learning model to provide an integrated model of landmark learning, using the water maze task. The model allows for the contribution of each cue, the salience and the vector information provided (both distance and directional) to be separately analysed. The model suggests that direction and distance information are independent components and can influence searching patterns. Importantly, the model can also be used to simulate various experimental scenarios to understand what has been learnt in relation to the cues, thereby offering new insights into how animals navigate.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. Cite as: Commins, S., Fey, D. Understanding the role of distance, direction and cue salience in an associative model of landmark learning. Sci Rep 9, 2026 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-38525-7
Keywords:	Understanding; role; distance; direction; cue salience; associative model; landmark learning;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	14187
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-38525-7
Depositing User:	Dr. Sean Commins
Date Deposited:	15 Mar 2021 17:06
Journal or Publication Title:	Scientific Reports
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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