Investigating Value-Driven Attention In An Avian Model

Birds have been shown to discriminate reward cues and spatial cues in a manner similar to primates, but the effects of selection history on attention in birds remain unclear. Like primates, eyesight is usually the most critical modality for birds, allowing them to fly, evade predators, forage for food, and evaluate potential mating partners. Here we used the Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus Linnaeus 1758) as our avian model and adapted a spatial cueing paradigm to investigate how attention is influenced by one particular component of selection history – reward history. Three female peahens were trained on individual components of the task until they could complete a sequence of pecking on an initial fixation point followed by a peripheral onset target within a 4 second time limit. After which, they were randomly assigned to a color-reward association pairing and a color cue appearing 550ms before target onset was added to the task. High-value color cues predicted two food pellets 80% of the time and one food pellet 20% of the time, and low-value color cues predicted one food pellet 20% of the time and no food reward 80% of the time. Cues were uninformative with respect to the location of the upcoming target. We analyzed RT for each bird separately by validity (valid vs. invalid), value (high vs. low), and their interaction. For one bird (1406 trials), we observed a significant effect of validity and a significant interaction between value and validity. For another bird (902 trials), we observed a significant effect of validity and a marginal effect of value. Our last bird did not exhibit any significant effects at 404 trials. Our preliminary findings suggest that reward history influences attention similarly for taxonomic classes mammals and aves.