The Control of Short-Distance Homing in the Golden Hamster

Abstract

The aim of spatial orientation studies is to determine what information controls the subject’s orientation in space and how this information is integrated and organized. In the ethological approach of this field of research, the first step always consists of defining the cues which a particular species uses in a given situation on the basis of its sensory equipment and with respect to the requirements it has to fulfill in its natural way of life. At this point in our investigations we have not only to ask what sensory modalities are involved, but, more fundamentally, whether our subjects rely on information which is registered “on site”, i.e. at particular locations or whether they use information which has been generated “en route”, i.e. during a preceding phase of locomotion (Baker, 1981;1984; Mittelstaedt and Mittelstaedt, 1982). Adopting the terminology which R. Robin Baker has coined with respect to navigation (usually defined in the ethological literature as goal-directed orientation across unfamiliar space), we shall refer to these two categories of spatial information as “location-based” and as “route-based” information.