Visual categorical perception by rats with temporal, striate, or sham ablations

Rats were trained to discriminate a 0 degrees stripe from a 90 degrees stripe in a two choice water maze. They were prepared with either Te2/3, partial striate (PS), or sham lesions and retrained on the preoperative discrimination. In two separate experiments, excellent savings was observed for all groups. Next, trials were administered with novel stripe orientations defined as either between- or within-category problems. Performance accuracy eroded rapidly for all groups in the first experiment, and no between-group differences were observed. In the second experiment, each session with categorical stimuli was preceded by four reminder trials with the original stimuli. This improved accuracy for all groups, but it was found that animals with PS lesions, not animals with T2/3 lesions, were impaired on between-category judgements. The impairment was not secondary to a disruption of basic visual sensory processing or significantly larger lesions relative to the Te2/3 group. As is the case for monkeys, accuracy with within-category stimuli was inferior to between-category stimuli for all groups. Possible reasons for this inter-species difference are discussed.