Contextual processing of brightness and color in Mongolian gerbils.

Brightness and color cues are essential for visually guided behavior. However, for rodents, little is known about how well they do use these cues. We used a virtual reality setup that offers a controlled environment for sensory testing to quantitatively investigate visually guided behavior for achromatic and chromatic stimuli in Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus). In two-alternative forced choice tasks, animals had to select target stimuli based on relative intensity or color with respect to a contextual reference. Behavioral performance was characterized using psychometric analysis and probabilistic choice modeling. The analyses revealed that the gerbils learned to make decisions that required judging stimuli in relation to their visual context. Stimuli were successfully recognized down to Weber contrasts as low as 0.1. These results suggest that Mongolian gerbils have the perceptual capacity for brightness and color constancy.

[1]  Andrew D. Zaharia,et al.  The Detection of Visual Contrast in the Behaving Mouse , 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[2]  D. G. Albrecht,et al.  Striate cortex of monkey and cat: contrast response function. , 1982, Journal of neurophysiology.

[3]  D. Tank,et al.  Intracellular dynamics of hippocampal place cells during virtual navigation , 2009, Nature.

[4]  Skipper Seabold,et al.  Statsmodels: Econometric and Statistical Modeling with Python , 2010, SciPy.

[5]  D. Foster.  Color constancy , 2011, Vision Research.

[6]  D. Brainard,et al.  Mechanisms of color constancy under nearly natural viewing. , 1999, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[7]  John D. Hunter,et al.  Matplotlib: A 2D Graphics Environment , 2007, Computing in Science & Engineering.

[8]  Sean P. MacEvoy,et al.  Lightness constancy in primary visual cortex , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[9]  M. P. Hoff,et al.  Activity rhythms in the Mongolian gerbil under natural light conditions , 1982, Physiology & Behavior.

[10]  Georg B. Keller,et al.  Sensorimotor Mismatch Signals in Primary Visual Cortex of the Behaving Mouse , 2012, Neuron.

[11]  Marc Ebner,et al.  Color Constancy , 2007, Computer Vision, A Reference Guide.

[12]  H. Dartnall,et al.  The interpretation of spectral sensitivity curves. , 1953, British medical bulletin.

[13]  G. H. Jacobs,et al.  Sensitivity to ultraviolet light in the gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus): Characteristics and mechanisms , 1994, Vision Research.

[14]  J. Kremers,et al.  Rod–cone-interactions in deuteranopic observers: models and dynamics , 1999, Vision Research.

[15]  Eberhart Zrenner,et al.  Is colour vision possible with only rods and blue-sensitive cones? , 1991, Nature.

[16]  Joachim Hermann,et al.  Mongolian gerbils learn to navigate in complex virtual spaces , 2014, Behavioural Brain Research.

[17]  M. Carandini,et al.  Probing perceptual decisions in rodents , 2013, Nature Neuroscience.

[18]  A Schnee,et al.  Rats are able to navigate in virtual environments , 2005, Journal of Experimental Biology.

[19]  A. Hurlbert,et al.  Color contrast: a contributory mechanism to color constancy. , 2004, Progress in brain research.

[20]  F A Wichmann,et al.  Ning for Helpful Comments and Suggestions. This Paper Benefited Con- Siderably from Conscientious Peer Review, and We Thank Our Reviewers the Psychometric Function: I. Fitting, Sampling, and Goodness of Fit , 2001 .

[21]  C. Law,et al.  The relative influences of priors and sensory evidence on an oculomotor decision variable during perceptual learning. , 2008, Journal of neurophysiology.

[22]  Christopher D. Harvey,et al.  Choice-specific sequences in parietal cortex during a virtual-navigation decision task , 2012, Nature.

[23]  N. Locke.  Color constancy in the rhesus monkey and in man , 1935 .

[24]  D. Tank,et al.  Membrane potential dynamics of grid cells , 2013, Nature.

[25]  V. Govardovskii,et al.  Cones in the retina of the Mongolian gerbil,Meriones unguiculatus: an immunocytochemical and electrophysiological study , 1992, Vision Research.

[26]  D. Tank,et al.  Imaging Large-Scale Neural Activity with Cellular Resolution in Awake, Mobile Mice , 2007, Neuron.

[27]  T. Sejnowski,et al.  Representation of Color Stimuli in Awake Macaque Primary Visual Cortex , 2003, Neuron.

[28]  D. Foster,et al.  Relational colour constancy from invariant cone-excitation ratios , 1994, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[29]  Ingo Fründ,et al.  Inference for psychometric functions in the presence of nonstationary behavior. , 2011, Journal of vision.

[30]  Christa Neumeyer,et al.  Color constancy in goldfish: the limits , 2000, Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

[31]  S. Dawis,et al.  Polynomial expressions of pigment nomograms , 1981, Vision Research.

[32]  Frank Jäkel,et al.  Bayesian inference for psychometric functions. , 2005, Journal of vision.

[33]  Eli Brenner,et al.  Speed judgments of three-dimensional motion incorporate extraretinal information. , 2011, Journal of vision.

[34]  Cone monochromacy and a reversed Purkinje shift in the gerbil , 1989, Experientia.

[35]  P. Glimcher,et al.  JOURNAL OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR 2005, 84, 555–579 NUMBER 3(NOVEMBER) DYNAMIC RESPONSE-BY-RESPONSE MODELS OF MATCHING BEHAVIOR IN RHESUS MONKEYS , 2022 .

[36]  R. M. Boynton,et al.  Rod influence in dichromatic surface color perception , 1987, Vision Research.