Kinder Scientific announces the industry’s first Cognitive Perception System for studying cognitive animal behavior!! The essence of the patent pending Cognitive Perception System is to provide an environment where the animal has an ever-existing A-B choice. “A-B choice” means that the subject animal is in a series of interconnected chambers where a door A and a door B each lead to an identical adjoining chamber.  Each chamber looks visually the same as all the other chambers in size and configuration.  Each chamber has a non-visual parameter, temperature, sound, vibration or smell, that is changeable in a controlled way by you.  As a result, in response to a cue, the animal is given a choice of staying where it is or going through door A or door B to another chamber.

Kinder Scientific’s Cognitive Perception System has four chambers, set in the corners of a square, that are connected via doors through which the subject animal may choose to pass. Each of the chambers is capable of having an aspect of its environment changed.  In the temperature model of the Cognitive Perception Device, the environmental parameter that is changed is temperature that is changed, either up or down, in a controlled fashion.  In the sound model of the Cognitive Perception System, the environmental parameter that is changed is sound that is changed in volume, frequency or timber in a controlled fashion. Changing the temperature or sound of at least one chamber causes the chamber to be more or less comfortable or desirable for the subject animal.  Making the animal uncomfortable, and as a result, more or less likely to perform behavior that it has been conditioned to perform in a chamber, the animal can be placed into a situation where the animal has to make a choice, that is, use its cognitive skills. In either the sound or temperature model, an aversion stimuli (foot shock in various current ranges) can be added to the chambers of the Cognitive Perception System.

The A and B doors control access to or the passage of an animal from one chamber to another chamber.  The doors are controllably opened or closed according to control software that you set up according to your experiment.  For example, the control software can be configured to run a software script, follow an algorithm, respond as a state machine (i.e., a software machine that takes certain action in response to inputs received by the state machine or changes of state in the state machine).  For example, the control software, interacting with the A and B doors, can open and close the A and B doors according to an established protocol (e.g., upon the presentation of a cue).  Or, the control software can open and close the A and B doors in response to the subject animal’s interaction with switches or levers in response to cues received by the subject animal from a light source, speaker or other cues.  Further, the Cognitive Perception System can be set up to respond to hardwire or software logic.

The Cognitive Perception System  include cues (light, sound) to which the animal may become trained to respond and switches, levers, lickometers or other operant interacting devices for allowing the animal to respond or desirable substance sources such as food feeders, drug, alcohol or medicament dispensing devices as rewards or as part of your experiment.  The Cognitive Perception System gives you a whole new way to study cognition!!!