CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 97Cephalopods and Marine BiologyMotor Control and AdaptationMarine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology

Octopus vulgaris Uses Visual Information to Determine the Location of its Arm

Open access
Gutnick, Tamar, Byrne, Ruth A., Hochner, Binyamin, Kuba, Michael·2011·Current Biology
DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.052
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Octopuses are intelligent, soft-bodied animals with keen senses that perform reliably in a variety of visual and tactile learning tasks. However, researchers have found them disappointing in that they consistently fail in operant tasks that require them to combine central nervous system reward information with visual and peripheral knowledge of the location of their arms. Wells claimed that in order to filter and integrate an abundance of multisensory inputs that might inform the animal of the position of a single arm, octopuses would need an exceptional computing mechanism, and "There is no evidence that such a system exists in Octopus, or in any other soft bodied animal." Recent electrophysiological experiments, which found no clear somatotopic organization in the higher motor centers, support this claim. We developed a three-choice maze that required an octopus to use a single arm to reach a visually marked goal compartment. Using this operant task, we show for the first time that Octopus vulgaris is capable of guiding a single arm in a complex movement to a location. Thus, we claim that octopuses can combine peripheral arm location information with visual input to control goal-directed complex movements.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.052

Cites

16 of 16 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The material properties of the collagen fibers give this tissue inherent stiffness, and to some degree extensibility and elasticity.

    “The material properties of the collagen fibers give this tissue inherent stiffness, and to some degree extensibility and elasticity (Gutnick et al., 2011).”

    From Lessons for Robotics From the Control Architecture of the Octopus (2022) · cites this paper as Gutnick et al., 2011

  • The control problem inherent in the octopus's large number of degrees of freedom could be further simplified by relying on feedforward movement strategies in unconstrained conditions and feedback strategies in lower-dimensional constrained environments.

    “The control problem inherent in the octopus’s large number of degrees of freedom could be further simplified by relying on feedforward movement strategies in unconstrained (high-dimensional) conditions (e.g. reaching toward a visual target (Sumbre et al., 2001)), and feedback strategies when operating in a lower-dimensional constrained environment (Gutnick et al., 2011), in which the arm can use”

    From Lessons for Robotics From the Control Architecture of the Octopus (2022) · cites this paper as Gutnick et al., 2011

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Gutnick, T., Byrne, R. A., Hochner, B., & Kuba, M.
Affiliations
  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
  • Medical University of Vienna (AT)
Corresponding author
Gutnick, Tamar
ORCID
Venue
Current Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2011-03
Volume
21
Issue
6
Pages
460-462
ISSN
0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.052
OpenAlex
W2122075965
Cited by
97
References
16
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 6
FWCI
6.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Current Biology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Cephalopods and Marine Biology
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Marine Invertebrate Physiology and Ecology
Keywords
Octopus vulgaris, visual guidance, multisensory integration, arm reaching, goal-directed movement, operant conditioning, somatotopic organization, soft-bodied animals, cephalopod cognition
MeSH terms
Animals, Conditioning, Operant, Extremities, Motor Activity, Motor Skills, Video Recording, Visual Perception, Maze Learning, Octopodiformes, Touch Perception

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review