ABSTRACT
Mice are being used increasing commonly to study visually guided behaviors. To help frame the design of visual tasks in mice, we explored limits of mouse visual behavior using a touchscreen-based 2AFC orientation discrimination task in unrestrained animals. We found that mice were able to discriminate targets as small as 25°, as brief as 100 ms, and with an ‘impulsivity index’ of 0.6. They were able to perform well a rudimentary visual search task, exhibiting classic psychometric curves to the relative contrast between target and foil. Using a combination of conditional accuracy analysis and drift diffusion modeling, we estimated the time for sensory encoding in mice as 300 ms, and the duration of their visual short-term memory as 1700 ms. Our results reveal surprising parallels between aspects of mouse and human visual behavior, and suggest that visual perceptual abilities of mice may be underappreciated.