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In a spatial navigation task, latent learning means that animals acquire knowledge of their environment through exploration, such that pre-exposed animals learn faster on a subsequent learning task than naive ones. This enhancement has been shown to depend on the design of the pre-exposure phase. Here, we hypothesize that the deep successor representation (DSR), a recent computational model for cognitive map formation, can account for the modulation of latent learning because it is sensitive to the statistics of behavior during exploration. In our model, exploration aligned with the future reward location significantly improves reward learning compared to random, misdirected, or no exploration, as reported by experiments. This effect generalizes across different action selection strategies. We show that these performance differences follow from the spatial information encoded in the structure of the DSR acquired in the pre-exposure phase. In summary, this study sheds light on the mechanisms underlying latent learning and how such learning shapes cognitive maps, impacting their effectiveness in goal-directed spatial tasks.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1014131","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,24]],"date-time":"2026-03-24T17:44:01Z","timestamp":1774374241000},"page":"e1014131","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Accounting for sensitivity of latent learning to behavioral statistics with successor representations"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"22","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8676-1131","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Matheus","family":"Menezes","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9453-2988","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Xiangshuai","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6719-8029","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Sen","family":"Cheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,24]]},"reference":[{"key":"pcbi.1014131.ref001","first-page":"113","article-title":"The effect of the introduction of reward upon the maze performance of rats","volume":"4","author":"HC Blodgett","year":"1929","journal-title":"University of California Publications in Psychology"},{"key":"pcbi.1014131.ref002","first-page":"257","article-title":"Introduction and removal of reward, and maze performance in rats","volume":"4","author":"EC Tolman","year":"1930","journal-title":"University of California Publications in Psychology"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1014131.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"189","DOI":"10.1037\/h0061626","article-title":"Cognitive maps in rats and men","volume":"55","author":"EC Tolman","year":"1948","journal-title":"Psychol Rev"},{"issue":"1","key":"pcbi.1014131.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"49","DOI":"10.1037\/h0070697","article-title":"The effect of doors on latent learning","volume":"15","author":"CT Daub","year":"1933","journal-title":"Journal of Comparative Psychology"},{"key":"pcbi.1014131.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"461","DOI":"10.1037\/h0061422","article-title":"The effects of certain pre-training procedures upon maze performance and their significance for the concept of latent learning","volume":"36","author":"HW Karn","year":"1946","journal-title":"Journal of Experimental Psychology"},{"issue":"2","key":"pcbi.1014131.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103","DOI":"10.1016\/S0163-1047(82)90101-7","article-title":"Being there: a novel demonstration of latent spatial learning in the rat","volume":"36","author":"RJ Sutherland","year":"1982","journal-title":"Behav Neural Biol"},{"issue":"2","key":"pcbi.1014131.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"97","DOI":"10.1037\/h0055171","article-title":"A critical review of latent learning and related experiments","volume":"48","author":"D Thistlethwaite","year":"1951","journal-title":"Psychol Bull"},{"key":"pcbi.1014131.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cobeha.2020.06.003","article-title":"Latent learning, cognitive maps, and curiosity","volume":"38","author":"MZ Wang","year":"2021","journal-title":"Curr Opin Behav Sci"},{"issue":"12","key":"pcbi.1014131.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"115028","DOI":"10.1016\/j.celrep.2024.115028","article-title":"Latent learning drives sleep-dependent plasticity in distinct CA1 subpopulations","volume":"43","author":"W Guo","year":"2024","journal-title":"Cell Rep"},{"key":"pcbi.1014131.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Scleidorovich P, Llofriu M, Fellous J-M, Weitzenfeld A. 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