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Learning to navigate in a three-dimensional world: From bees to primates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

Adrian G. Dyer  and
Marcello G. P. Rosa
Adrian G. Dyer
Affiliation:
School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia. [email protected]://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/adrian_dyer Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia. [email protected]://www.med.monash.edu.au/physiology/staff/rosa.html
Marcello G. P. Rosa
Affiliation:
Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, VIC 3800, Australia. [email protected]://www.med.monash.edu.au/physiology/staff/rosa.html
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Abstract

We discuss the idea that environmental factors influence the neural mechanisms that evolved to enable navigation, and propose that a capacity to learn different spatial relationship rules through experience may contribute to bicoded processing. Recent experiments show that free-flying bees can learn abstract spatial relationships, and we propose that this could be combined with optic flow processing to enable three-dimensional navigation.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 5 , October 2013 , pp. 550
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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