How rats process spatiotemporal information in the face of distraction.

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.