碩士 / 國立清華大學 / 系統神經科學研究所 / 102 / Concept formation has long been considered as a complex cognitive behavior that only exists in vertebrates, e.g., mammals and birds. But a previous study has shown that honeybees, an invertebrate with a simpler brain, also possess the ability of knowing the sameness and difference in visual and olfactory modalities. In the present study, we hypothesized that cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis), a marine invertebrate with keen vision, complex central nervous system, and exhibiting sophisticated behaviors, share a great convergence of cognitive functions that are similar to those found in vertebrates and insects. To examine if cuttlefish could learn the concept of sameness, a 3-D maze was developed to apply the delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) paradigm. At the bottom part of the maze, cuttlefish were trained to match the same background pattern (secondary pattern) after seeing the pattern (primary pattern) at the upper part of the maze. The learning criterion, with statistical significance, was set to assess if cuttlefish were able to extract the rule of sameness through the training. Once cuttlefish reached the learning criterion, the transfer test was proceeded to exam if cuttlefish could apply the rule of sameness when they encountered a new pattern pair. Cuttlefish failed to reach the criterion in the training phase. Their choices to the background pattern were biased to their innate preferences. We conducted a control experiment to confirm the failure of training was not because cuttlefish were unable to succeed in the DMTS task. One out of five animals passed the criterion in the control experiment with only 23 trials, and this criterion-reached animal chose the background pattern according to its innate preference in absence of the primary pattern. Individual cuttlefish solving the DMTS task suggests that cuttlefish might be able to associate the background pattern with what they have seen previously, and this implies that cuttlefish possess the short-lasting memory, or the working memory. In summary, we conclude that cuttlefish are unable to learn the abstract concept under current experimental condition, but cuttlefish are able to solve the DMTS task and possess the visual working memory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/102NTHU5291001 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Liu, I-Ming, 劉翼鳴 |
| Contributors | Chiao, Chuan-Chin, 焦傳金 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 55 |
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