Sh. Alyan et R. Jander, INTERPLAY OF DIRECTIONAL NAVIGATION MECHANISMS AS A FUNCTION OF NEAR-GOAL DISTANCE - EXPERIMENTS WITH THE HOUSE MOUSE, Behavioural processes, 41(3), 1997, pp. 245-255
Mice (Mus musculus) that shuttle between their nest and an outside goa
l use different navigation mechanisms, depending on their distance fro
m the nest. This was studied by rotating directional cues and the mice
relative to one another. Close to home (20-50 cm) mice choose path in
tegration and orientation by beacon, while farther away from the nest
distal landmark orientation becomes more important. The larger the bea
con is at the home site, the greater is the distance over which it is
used as a directional cue. As mice head towards their nest, they demon
strate a tendency to home by means of distal landmarks at large distan
ces, and by means of path integration or guided beacon integration at
smaller distances. This space related sequence in the use of orientati
on mechanisms is the reverse from the temporal sequence (stages) of le
arning mechanisms employed when first learning to navigate home (Alyan
and Jander, 1994). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.