Learning corresponds with a decrease in intermediate-speed exploratory behaviors.

<p><b>a, </b><b>(top)</b> Rats were introduced to a novel W shaped environment where they learned to perform a spatial alternation task over multiple 15 minute exposures. <b>(bottom)</b> Animals were rewarded at the ends of each arm when they performed the correct sequence of trajectories: from center arm to left to center to right to center… <b>b,</b> Rat behavior was monitored using head-mounted infrared diodes tracked with an overhead camera, and smoothed speed was extracted from this data. Three examples of extracted speed also show the surrounding behavioral trajectory over 10 seconds in slow, medium, and fast cases. <b>c,</b> The head movement speed distributions for exposures 1, 5, and 10 to an initially novel W-track. Means are shown with solid lines and standard errors with shaded regions. <b>d,</b> Correlation between speed, measured in two dimensions, and linear speed along the axis of the track. Lower correlations at intermediate speeds are consistent with exploratory behavior.