In search of the cognitive map: Can rats learn an abstract pattern of rewarded arms on the radial maze?

Five experiments were performed to examine rats' abilities to form an abstr act cognitive map of the pattern of baited arm locations on a radial maze a nd to recognize that pattern when it was moved to a new location. Following an initial period of training with patterns of rewarded and nonrewarded ar ms (Experiments 1 and 2) or with patterns of different quantities of reward (Experiment 3), a test phase was carried out in which the initial pattern was rotated varying distances around the maze. In Experiments 4 and 5, test ing was carried out in an environment different from the one used in traini ng. All 5 experiments failed to yield any evidence that rats learned a geom etric or topographical representation of a pattern of reward locations that could be transferred to a new placement of the pattern.