Wednesday, March 14, 2012

More smart rat news...

Rats match humans in decision-making that involves combining different sensory cues: study

Here at the Dominion of Opinion, we* like to note news showing about the intelligence of rats:
A Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) study that compared the ability of humans and rodents to make perceptual decisions based on combining different modes of sensory stimuli—visual and auditory cues, for instance—has found that just like humans, rodents also combine multisensory and exploit it in a "statistically optimal" way -- or the most efficient and unbiased way possible.
Apparently, this is significant for further studies of autism, in which people combine sensory information in a not normal sort of way.  Unfortunately for rats, this sounds rather like their brains going under the microscope more often than before.   If they were really smart, they would start to act dumb during some of these tests.

* me and my crack team of contributors includes myself and I

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