Speed and accuracy of visual image discrimination by rats.

ABSTRACT: The trade-off between speed and accuracy of sensory discrimination has most often been studied using sensory stimuli that evolve over time, such as random dot motion discrimination tasks. We previously reported that when rats perform motion discrimination, correct trials have longer reaction times than errors, accuracy increases with reaction time, and reaction time increases with stimulus ambiguity. In such experiments, new sensory information is continually presented, which could partly explain interactions between reaction time and accuracy. The present study shows that a changing physical stimulus is not essential to those findings. Freely behaving rats were trained to discriminate between two static visual images in a self-paced, two-alternative forced-choice reaction time task. Each

SUBMITTER: Reinagel P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3866522 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature