Flies are often observed to approach dark objects. To a naïve observer they seem to pay selective attention to one out of several objects although previous research identified as a possible underlying mechanism a reflex-like fixation behavior integrating responses to all objects. In a combination of behavioral experiments and computational modelling, we investigated the choice behavior of flies freely walking towards an arrangement of two objects placed at a variable distance from each other. The walking trajectories were oriented towards one of the objects much earlier than predicted by a simple reactive model. We show that object choice can be explained by a continuous control scheme in combination with a mechanism randomly responding to the position of each object according to a stochastic process. This may be viewed as a special form of an implicit attention-like mechanism, for which the model does not require an explicit decision mechanism or a memory for the drawn decision.
Random attention can explain apparent object choice behavior in free-walking blowflies
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- Funder(s): Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
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Currently Viewing Accepted Manuscript - Newer Version Available
José Monteagudo, Martin Egelhaaf, Jens Peter Lindemann; Random attention can explain apparent object choice behavior in free-walking blowflies. J Exp Biol 2022; jeb.243801. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.243801
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