Fig. 2: Bidirectional cross-modal generalization of spatial information.

a Schematic of the behavioral paradigm where switches occur between an auditory discrimination task with two pure tones (6 kHz and 12 kHz) and a visual task. The 6 kHz tone only is associated with a water reward. b Left: Average task performance and conditional lick probabilities across sessions for mice (N = 5 mice) undergoing a modality switch (dashed vertical line). Shaded areas and color code as in Fig. 1e. Right: detection (purple) and discrimination (green) performance distribution for the session before and after the switch (two-sided paired t test comparing days, Det.: ***p = 1.2 × 10^–7; Discr.: ***p = 6.6 × 10^–5). Performances are also tested against chance level (two-sided t test, Det.: ***p = 4.8 × 10^–5 and *p = 0.031; Discr.: ***p = 4.4 × 10^–5 and Blank p = 0.59). Error bars: S.E.M. c Comparison of relearning rates between mice that underwent a rule-reversing tacto-visual modality switch and mice that underwent switch from a non-spatial auditory task to the same visual task (N = 10 mice for tactile group and N = 10 mice for auditory group, unpaired two-sided t test, *p = 0.02). Error bars: S.E.M. d Schematic of the behavioral paradigm, where switches occur between a visual task and a tactile task with the top visual stimulus being the rewarded one. e Same as panel b for mice undergoing a rule-preserving switch (N = 5 mice, two-sided paired t test comparing days, Det.: N.S. p = 0.16; Discr.: N.S. p = 0.29). Performances are also tested against chance level (two-sided t test, Det.: ***p = 2.3 × 10^–4 and *p = 0.029; Discr.: ***p = 3.5 × 10^–4 and *p = 0.03). f Same as panel b but for a rule-reversing modality switch (N = 5 mice, two-sided paired t test comparing days, Det.: ***p = 7 × 10^–9; Discr.: ***p = 7.2 × 10^–5). Performances are also tested against chance level (two-sided t test, Det.: ***p = 3.6 × 10^–6 and Blank p = 0.098; Discr.: ***p = 2.9 × 10^–5 and Blank p = 0.2). g Comparison of average task performance in the tactile and visual tasks before (pre) or after (post) modality switches across mice (sample size indicated in the bar plot). Only mice that underwent rule-preserving switches were included after the switch (two-sided unpaired Wilcoxon test, *p = 0.04, ***p = 2.3 × 10^–6, N.S. Not significant p = 0.22). Error bars: S.E.M.