knew how to perform well. By conducting a simple experiment and taking on the role of “a little bit of a mouse psychologist,” Kuchibhotla and his team were able to uncover the reason behind this behavior.The researcher understood how to excel. Through a simple test, and by observing animals’ behavior, he and his team found the answer.
“It seems that a large part of the difference between knowledge and performance is due to the animal’s exploratory behavior — what the animal is doing is very intelligent,” he explained. “It’s difficult to say that animals are forming hypotheses, but our perspective is that animals, like humans, can form hypotheses, test them, and may use advanced cognitive processes to do so.”
This study enhances our comprehension of animal cognition and may help in identifying the neural basis for strategizing.g, published in Current Biology.
In a previous study, Kuchibhotla’s lab discovered that animals possess more knowledge about tasks than they exhibit in tests. The team had two potential explanations for this disparity. They hypothesized that either the mice were making errors due to stress, or they were engaging in purposeful behavior, such as exploring and testing their knowledge.
To investigate, Kuchibhotla and neuroscience graduate student Ziyi Zhu designed a new experiment. Mice were exposed to two different sounds. One sound prompted them to turn a wheel to the left, while the other sound instructed them to turn the wheel to the right.When the mice performed a task correctly, they were given a reward. The researchers observed that when the mice heard different sounds during multiple trials, they would initially turn the wheel left and then switch to turning it right. This behavior may have seemed like mistakes, but it was actually intentional. Kuchibhotla explained that the animals employed a simple strategy while exploring, first going left to figure things out, and then switching to going right. This showed that mice are more strategic in their behavior than some people may think. Zhu also noted that errors made by animals during the learning process are often considered significant.The researchers found that not all mistakes made by rodents should be considered as errors. Their research has provided a new understanding of this concept. By removing the reward from the equation, the team gained further insight into the rodents’ behavior. They observed that when a mouse performed a task correctly but did not receive a reward, it would then perform the task even better when retested. This led the researchers to believe that the lack of reward violated the animal’s expectations, causing it to improve its performance on subsequent trials. According to Kuchibhotla, this shows that the animal has an internal model of the task and adjusts its behavior based on the presence or absence of reward.”To be rewarded, I wasn’t, so let me test my knowledge, let me use the knowledge I have and see if it’s correct.'” If the animal didn’t have an internal model of the task, there would be no expectations to violate and the mice would keep performing poorly. “At a very early time in learning the animal has an expectation and when we violate it, it changes its strategy,” Kuchibhotla said. “It was surprisingly strategic.” This mouse strategizing is comparable to how nonverbal human babies learn. Both are highly exploratory and both may test hypotheses in various ways, Kuchibhotla said.Kuchibhotla explained that during the experiments, he had to adopt the role of a mouse psychologist in order to understand their behavior. Similar to working with a nonverbal infant, he and Zhu had to analyze the behavior of the mice to discern their underlying thought processes.
He mentioned that the most enjoyable aspect of the project was attempting to decipher the thoughts of the mice. It required them to consider the situation from the perspective of the animal.
The team’s next goal is to identify the neural mechanisms behind strategic thinking and to compare these strategies across different animal species.
