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Updated: Nov 7, 2025

A Behavioral Assay for Investigating the Role of Spatial Memory During Instinctive Defense in Mice

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Published on: July 21, 2018

Visual cues enhance obstacle avoidance in echolocating bats.

Te K Jones¹, Cynthia F Moss¹

¹Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

The Journal of Experimental Biology

|May 4, 2021

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Bats use both vision and hearing to avoid obstacles, with combined cues leading to better avoidance. Flight and echolocation behaviors did not change, indicating combined sensory input is key for obstacle detection.

Keywords:

Bats Echolocation Multimodal composite signal Multisensory Navigation Vision

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Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Published on: May 2, 2019

Area of Science:

Sensory ecology
Animal behavior
Neuroethology

Background:

Bats utilize visual information for navigation and foraging.
The role of vision versus audition in obstacle avoidance is not fully understood, especially in echolocating bats.
Characterizing behavioral responses to combined sensory cues is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relative contributions of visual and auditory information in obstacle avoidance in bats.
To quantify behavioral responses of bats to different combinations of sensory cues.
To understand how sensory modalities guide obstacle avoidance behavior.

Main Methods:

The study focused on the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, an insectivorous species.
An obstacle avoidance task was designed using a novel method to isolate visual and auditory cues.
Behavioral responses were measured under conditions with visual cues, auditory cues, and combined cues.

Main Results:

Combined visual and auditory cues significantly enhanced obstacle avoidance compared to single-modality cues.
No significant differences were observed in flight speed or echolocation call rates across different obstacle conditions.
Flight and echolocation parameters were not reliable indicators of the bat's response to stimulus type.

Conclusions:

Bats benefit from integrated visual and auditory information for effective obstacle avoidance.
The study highlights the synergistic effect of multisensory integration in guiding bat navigation.
Future research can build upon these findings to explore sensory processing in bats.