Remote guidance of untrained turtles by controlling voluntary instinct behavior

PLoS One. 2013 Apr 17;8(4):e61798. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0061798. Print 2013.

Abstract

Recently, several studies have been carried out on the direct control of behavior in insects and other lower animals in order to apply these behaviors to the performance of specialized tasks in an attempt to find more efficient means of carrying out these tasks than artificial intelligence agents. While most of the current methods cause involuntary behavior in animals by electronically stimulating the corresponding brain area or muscle, we show that, in turtles, it is also possible to control certain types of behavior, such as movement trajectory, by evoking an appropriate voluntary instinctive behavior. We have found that causing a particular behavior, such as obstacle avoidance, by providing a specific visual stimulus results in effective control of the turtle's movement. We propose that this principle may be adapted and expanded into a general framework to control any animal behavior as an alternative to robotic probes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Avoidance Learning / physiology
  • Behavior Control*
  • Behavior, Animal / physiology*
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Remote Sensing Technology / methods*
  • Turtles / physiology*
  • Walking / physiology

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the IT Convergence Campus Fund of KAIST (G04100066), the Korea Ministry of Land, Transport, and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) as U-City Master and Doctor Course Grant Program, and a grant from Human Resources Development (No. 20114030200040) of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) funded by the Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.