Abstract

Sensory perception is accomplished by means of active behaviors that help to extract information from the external environment. These behaviors become a part of the percept and also constrain the perceptual task. In olfactory perception, sniffing is the means by which individuals acquire olfactory stimuli from the environment. Rats sniff at 8–10 Hz during odor sampling, but each sniff has a different and stereotyped pattern that serves to find needed information. Higher flow sniffs are used to identify high sorption odors within mixtures, while lower flow sniffs are used to find lower sorption odors. Extended sniffing bouts (mean of 300–600 ms) are also stereotyped and tuned by the context in which rats identify odors. These sniffing bouts may be determined by the cognitive demands of the task or by particularities associated with training.