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Whisker Movements Reveal Spatial Attention: A Unified Computational Model of Active Sensing Control in the Rat

Figure 7

Contact-induced asymmetry.

(A) Results from model (see text for analysis method). Mean protraction angle of the whiskers on the left (or right—see text) in NEAR relative to mean value in FAR, plotted against the binned location, , relative to the fovea of a single nearby wall (4 mm square bins). Red/white/blue indicates mean protraction angle is reduced/equal/increased relative to , with full saturation for each colour indicating difference. White semi-circle indicates 25 mm from fovea at , i.e. the region graphed in Figure 4c of Mitchinson et al. (2007) [20]. (B) Results from behavioural experiment (in rat, [20], their Figure 4c), re-analysed on a rectangular grid to match current analysis. Electromyogram strength in NEAR, rather than mean protraction angle, is graphed, relative to mean electromyogram strength in FAR; fully saturated red/blue indicates 33% difference. (C/D) Stills from model (C) and behavioural experiment (D) showing asymmetry in bilateral protraction angles driven by encounter with angled surface. Still in (C) is taken from Video S6.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003236.g007