Research Project: İşlemsel Yetilerden Metrik Etkileşimlere : Hayvan Zihninde Zaman, Uzam Ve Sayı
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Contributors
Funders
ID
TB.00333
Authors
Balcı, Fuat
Faculty Member
Publications
Mice extrapolate temporal information based on previously learned spatiotemporal mappings: an asymmetrical case
(Springer, 2026) Gür, Ezgi; Duyan, Yalçın Akın; Toptaş, Pınar; Balcı, Fuat; Duyan, Yalçın Akın; Gür, Ezgi; Department of Psychology; Yes; Toptaş, Pınar; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
One of the computational affordances of isomorphic magnitude representations is the extrapolation of temporal information based on previously experienced spatiotemporal pairings. We initially trained mice on the association of two intervals (10 s and 30 s) with two hoppers (H2 and H4, counterbalanced) in a five-choice nose-poke box with the following setup. One of the three novel hoppers (H1) neighbored H2 only, the other novel hopper (H5) neighbored H4 only, and the third novel hopper (H3) neighbored H2 and H4 (H1Novel -> H2Trained -> H3Novel -> H4Trained -> H5Novel). During test trials, one of the five hoppers was illuminated. We estimated the trial time at which the anticipatory response rate was maximal (peak time) separately for each hopper. Mice extrapolated temporal information only in a forward fashion; the peak time for H5 was longer than that for H4. Mice did not extrapolate temporal information backward; the timed response curves in H1 and H3 were closely similar to those in H2. Thus, our findings suggest that mice can extrapolate temporal information, but also indicate that the computations underlying this process are directionally constrained. We discuss the possible reasons behind asymmetrical extrapolation.
Mice make temporal inferences about novel locations based on previously learned spatiotemporal contingencies
(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland Gmbh, 2023) Duyan, Yalçın Akın; Gür, Ezgi; Balcı, Fuat; Department of Psychology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES
Animals learn multiple spatiotemporal contingencies and organize their anticipatory responses accordingly. The representational/computational capacity that underlies such spatiotemporally guided behaviors is not fully understood. To this end, we investigated whether mice make temporal inferences of novel locations based on previously learned spatiotemporal contingencies. We trained 18 C57BL/6J mice to anticipate reward after three different intervals at three different locations and tested their temporal expectations of a reward at five locations simultaneously, including two locations that were not previously associated with reward delivery but adjacent to the previously trained locations. If mice made spatiotemporal inferences, they were expected to interpolate between duration pairs associated with previously reinforced hoppers surrounding the novel hopper. We found that the maximal response rate at the novel locations indeed fell between the two intervals reinforced at the surrounding hoppers. We argue that this pattern of responding might be underlain by spatially constrained Bayesian computations. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Numerical averaging in mice
(Springer, 2021) Balcı, Fuat; Duyan, Yalçın Akın; Gür, Ezgi; Department of Psychology; KUTTAM (Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine); Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Research Center
Rodents can be trained to associate different durations with different stimuli (e.g., light/sound). When the associated stimuli are presented together, maximal responding is observed around the average of individual durations (akin to averaging). The current study investigated whether mice can also average independently trained numerosities. Mice were initially trained to make 10 or 20 lever presses on a single (run) lever to obtain a reward and each fixed-ratio schedule was signaled either with an auditory or visual stimulus. Then, mice were trained to press another lever to obtain the reward after they responded on the run lever for the minimum number of presses [Fixed Consecutive Number (FCN)-10 or -20 trials] signaled by the corresponding discriminative stimulus. Following this training, FCN trials with the compound stimulus were introduced to test the counting behavior of mice when they encountered conflicting information regarding the number of responses required to obtain the reward. Our results showed that the numbers of responses on these compound test trials were around the average of the number of responses in FCN-10 and FCN-20 trials particularly when the auditory stimulus was associated with a fewer number of required responses. The counting strategy explained the behavior of the majority of the mice in the FCN-Compound test trials (as opposed to the timing strategy). The number of responses in FCN-Compound trials was accounted for equally well by the arithmetic, geometric, and Bayesian averages of the number of responses observed in FCN-10 and FCN-20 trials.
Mice monitor their timing errors
(Nature Portfolio, 2024) Öztel, Tutku; Balcı, Fuat; KUTTAM (Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine); Department of Psychology; KUISCID (Koç University İşbank Center for Infectious Diseases); Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Research Center
Animals often engage in representationally guided goal-directed behaviors. These behaviors are thus also subjected to representational uncertainty (e.g. timing uncertainty during waiting), which has been previously shown to adaptively guide behaviors normatively. These observations raise the question of whether non-human animals can track the direction and magnitude of their timing errors (i.e. temporal error monitoring). Only a few studies have investigated this question without addressing the key components of temporal error monitoring (e.g. due to differential reinforcement of metacognitive judgments and primary task representation). We conducted the critical test of temporal error monitoring in mice by developing a novel behavioral task that involved temporal production that exponentially favored temporal accuracy and minimized the contribution of sensorimotor noise. The response rate for an upcoming probabilistic reward following the timing performance was used as a proxy for confidence. We found that mice exhibited high reward expectancy after accurate and low reward expectancy after inaccurate timing performance. The reward expectancy decreased as a function of deviations from the target interval for the short and long reproductions;pointing to the symmetrical sensitivity of metacognition to shorter/longer than target responses. These findings suggest a complete temporal error monitoring ability for mice with human-like metacognitive features.
Surfacing of latent time memories supports the representational basis of timing behavior in mice
(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2024) Balcı, Fuat; Öztel, Tutku; Department of Psychology; KUTTAM (Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine); Yes; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; Research Center
Animals can adapt their reward expectancy to changes in delays to reward availability. When temporal relations are altered, associative models of interval timing predict that the original time memory is lost due to the updating of the underlying associative weights, whereas the representational models render the preservation of the original time memory (as previously demonstrated in the extinction of conditioned fear). The current study presents the critical test of these theoretical accounts by training mice with two different intervals in a consecutive fashion (short → long or long → short) and then testing timing behaviors during extinction where neither temporal relation is in effect. Mice that were trained with the long interval first clustered their anticipatory responses around the average of two intervals (indirect higher-order manifestation of two memories in the form of temporal averaging), whereas mice trained with the short interval first clustered their responses either around the short or long interval (direct manifestation of memory representations by their independent indexing). We assert that the original memory representation formed during training with the long interval “metrically affords” the integration of subsequent experiences with a shorter interval, allowing their co-activation during extinction. The original memory representation formed during training with the short interval would not metrically afford such integration and thus result in the formation of a new (mutually exclusive) time memory representation, which does not afford their co-activation during extinction. Our results provide strong support for the representational account of interval timing. We provide a new theoretical account of these findings based on the “metric affordances” of the original memory representation formed during training with the original intervals. © The Author(s) 2024.
