Behavioural Processes 58 (2002) 79 – 90 How rats process spatiotemporal information in the face of distraction Christina M. Thorpe *, Vanja Petrovic, Donald M. Wilkie Department of Psychology, The Uniersity of British Columbia, Vancouer BC, Canada V6T 1Z4 Received 25 May 2001; received in revised form 13 December 2001; accepted 17 December 2001 Abstract How rats process spatiotemporal information in the face of distraction was assessed. Rats were trained on a time–place learning task in which the location of food availability depended on the amount of time elapsed since the beginning of the training session. In each training session each of four levers provided food pellets for 5 min on an intermittent schedule. In probe sessions interspersed with the final training sessions, the rats were presented with a second highly preferred food source—a piece of cheese—at various times into the session. Rats choose the correct lever after the cheese distraction, but it appeared that their internal clock had stopped during the cheese consumption period. Thus rats’ internal clock, like that of pigeons, displays the properties of ‘stop’, ‘reset’, and ‘restart’. Rat – pigeon differences in timing processes may be restricted to circadian or time of day timing. Present results also suggest that rats process spatial and temporal information separately. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Foraging; Time – place behaviour; Internal clock; Distraction; Rats www.elsevier.com/locate/behavproc 1. Introduction Many animals appear to use spatiotemporal information to guide their foraging behaviour. Gallistel (1990) has posited that, whenever a bio- logically significant event occurs, a code is stored in memory consisting of the nature of the event, and the time and spatial location at which it occurred. A striking example of an animal using spatiotemporal information to guide their forag- ing behaviour was described by Daan and Koene (1981). In their field study they observed oyster- catchers flying from their inland roosts to mussel beds located in tidal mudflats located some dis- tance from the roosts. The timing of these forag- ing trips was critical. Flying too early or too late would not result in foraging success. Despite the fact that low tide depends upon both circadian and circalunar cycles the oystercatchers were able to arrive at the mussel beds at the ‘correct’ times. Another interesting field study of birds’ forag- ing behaviour was reported by Davies and Hous- ton (1981). They studied the pied wagtail, a passerine bird that defends a feeding territory in * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-604-822-4650; fax: +1- 604-822-6923. E-mail address: cmthorpe@interchange.ubc.ca (C.M. Thorpe). 0376-6357/02/$ - see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0376-6357(02)00003-7