![]() Our study encourages the use of virtual mazes to compare behavioral variability between humans and other species. We conclude that the adaptive function of route variability in rats is similar to that in humans thus, the virtual Dashiell maze could become a reliable and straightforward task for assessing human behavior variability. Results showed that rats in their maze and humans in the virtual version had similar path variability for reaching the goal, although humans showed higher dispersion from the mean. With the goal of validating an animal model task for assessing human behavior variability, this study presents an experiment comparing rat and human performance when traversing a Dashiell maze. Given the need for a task that might evaluate behavioral variability in humans, a simulation of the Dashiell procedure was developed: a virtual maze for human participants. The main finding was the variety of new pathways that the subjects took to reach the goal. To assess their orientation in mazes, Dashiell (1930) developed a procedure allowing rats to reach the goal by utilizing paths of equal distance from the starting point. It is discussed that hamsters have a win-shift strategy for hoarding behavior even when they do not need to remember the places visited, though they exhibited more pre-choice behaviors when searching for food in the depleting condition. However, more pre-choice behaviors and a longer center time were observed in the depleting condition than in the replenishing one. Results showed that, regardless of condition, animals were significantly more likely to visit new arms. We registered the number of new arms visited (hits), the time spent in the central area of the maze, and the behaviors emitted in the central area before each arm choice. In the present experiment, 12 hamsters were assessed in the RAM under 2 conditions: the depleting condition, in which feeders were not rebaited after each visit, and the replenishing condition, in which feeders were rebaited. When this response pattern is found, it is said that the animal remembers the places visited. An accurate response pattern in the RAM is described as the tendency to visit a new arm after each choice (i.e., win-shift strategy). Rodents’ spatial memory is traditionally assessed in the radial arm-maze (RAM).
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