Visual uncertainty and task demands shape active sensing strategies in mice

Abstract

In natural environments, animals actively sample visual information to guide behavior. Sensory feedback is dynamic and often requires active movements, whether saccading across the lines of this page or walking through a park. From high-acuity vision in hawks to low-acuity mice, many animals actively navigate to seek information, which can be called infotaxis. Although mice have relatively low-acuity vision, they still rely on sight for critical behaviors including navigation and prey capture. Yet, how sensitive they are to visual information and performing infotaxis has not been established. Here, we develop a virtual reality object discrimination task to investigate visual decision-making under naturalistic conditions. We show that mice perform infotaxis by actively seeking out informative views to guide their choices. Stimulus manipulations confirm that this strategy is modulated by the amount of available visual information. These results reveal that mice use principled active strategies to resolve visual uncertainty, highlighting a key role for information-seeking in natural vision. HighlightsO_LIMice perform active visual sensing in a free-range VR object discrimination task. C_LIO_LIThey perform infotaxis and select the correct object under variable visibility. C_LIO_LIDecisions decoded from head-body movements and speed reflect occlusion sensitivity. C_LI