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Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis

Perceptual similarity between stimuli is often assessed via generalization, the response to stimuli that are similar to the one which was previously conditioned. Although conditioning procedures are variable, studies on how this variation may affect perceptual similarity remain scarce. Here, we use...

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Autores principales: Perez, Margot, Nowotny, Thomas, d'Ettorre, Patrizia, Giurfa, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5013785/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27581883
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0551
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author Perez, Margot
Nowotny, Thomas
d'Ettorre, Patrizia
Giurfa, Martin
author_facet Perez, Margot
Nowotny, Thomas
d'Ettorre, Patrizia
Giurfa, Martin
author_sort Perez, Margot
collection PubMed
description Perceptual similarity between stimuli is often assessed via generalization, the response to stimuli that are similar to the one which was previously conditioned. Although conditioning procedures are variable, studies on how this variation may affect perceptual similarity remain scarce. Here, we use a combination of behavioural and computational analyses to investigate the influence of olfactory conditioning procedures on odour generalization in ants. Insects were trained following either absolute conditioning, in which a single odour (an aldehyde) was rewarded with sucrose, or differential conditioning, in which one odour (the same aldehyde) was similarly rewarded and another odour (an aldehyde differing in carbon-chain length) was punished with quinine. The response to the trained odours and generalization to other aldehydes were assessed. We show that olfactory similarity, rather than being immutable, varies with the conditioning procedure. Compared with absolute conditioning, differential conditioning enhances olfactory discrimination. This improvement is best described by a multiplicative interaction between two independent processes, the excitatory and inhibitory generalization gradients induced by the rewarded and the punished odour, respectively. We show that olfactory similarity is dramatically shaped by an individual's perceptual experience and suggest a new hypothesis for the nature of stimulus interactions underlying experience-dependent changes in perceptual similarity.
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spelling pubmed-50137852016-09-14 Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis Perez, Margot Nowotny, Thomas d'Ettorre, Patrizia Giurfa, Martin Proc Biol Sci Research Articles Perceptual similarity between stimuli is often assessed via generalization, the response to stimuli that are similar to the one which was previously conditioned. Although conditioning procedures are variable, studies on how this variation may affect perceptual similarity remain scarce. Here, we use a combination of behavioural and computational analyses to investigate the influence of olfactory conditioning procedures on odour generalization in ants. Insects were trained following either absolute conditioning, in which a single odour (an aldehyde) was rewarded with sucrose, or differential conditioning, in which one odour (the same aldehyde) was similarly rewarded and another odour (an aldehyde differing in carbon-chain length) was punished with quinine. The response to the trained odours and generalization to other aldehydes were assessed. We show that olfactory similarity, rather than being immutable, varies with the conditioning procedure. Compared with absolute conditioning, differential conditioning enhances olfactory discrimination. This improvement is best described by a multiplicative interaction between two independent processes, the excitatory and inhibitory generalization gradients induced by the rewarded and the punished odour, respectively. We show that olfactory similarity is dramatically shaped by an individual's perceptual experience and suggest a new hypothesis for the nature of stimulus interactions underlying experience-dependent changes in perceptual similarity. The Royal Society 2016-08-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5013785/ /pubmed/27581883 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0551 Text en © 2016 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Perez, Margot
Nowotny, Thomas
d'Ettorre, Patrizia
Giurfa, Martin
Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title_full Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title_fullStr Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title_full_unstemmed Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title_short Olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
title_sort olfactory experience shapes the evaluation of odour similarity in ants: a behavioural and computational analysis
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5013785/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27581883
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0551
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