Behavioral strategy shifts with training: Rats on an elevated plus maze

Rats use a multitude of cues within the environment to guide their behavior . The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree to which reliance on local cues, visual extramaze cues, and other sources of information cha nges with training. Female Fischer 344 rats were trained consecutively for 24 days on a four-arm radial maze reference memory task. The correct arm co uld be located by its relation to the "outside world," a large white illumi nated poster, or to a local insert on the goal arm. Within 2 weeks, the ani mals were consistently choosing the goal arm regardless of how they were pl aced on the maze. Four and 10 days after reaching asymptotic performance, a probe trial was given to determine what strategy the animals were using to solve the task. During the probe trial, both the visual extramaze cue and the local cues were rotated 90 degrees clockwise and counterclockwise, resp ectively, and the animals' choice of arm was recorded. This probe revealed which cues had the greatest influence on each animal's behavior. Initially, the animals bended to use all three types of cues equally in solving the t ask. With additional training, there was a shift toward predominantly using visual extramaze information and ignoring information outside of the testi ng environment. Thus, the use of environmental information is dynamic, even within a specific task, and it changes with the extent of the training.