Effects of proactive interference on rats’ continuous nonmatching-to-sample performance

Abstract

Rats performed a new delayed matching-to-sample task-the continuous nonmatching-tosample task. A variable number of trials with one stimulus alternated with trials with a second stimulus. A response on the trial following a stimulus change (nonmatch trial) was reinforced. Responses to repeated stimuli were never reinforced. Rats could maximize reinforcement by remembering across the intertrial interval which stimulus was presented on the previous trial. Sequential analysis indicated that interference from previous conflicting trials (proactive interference, PI) reduced response accuracy but did not affect retention: Accuracy was lower on trials following a nonmatch trial than on trials following repeated stimuli. Furthermore, accuracy increased as a function of the time between the to-be-remembered nonmatch trial and the previous interfering trial. However, neither time between trials nor the distance from a stimulus change affected the rate of decline in accuracy over the retention interval.

Simple delayed discrimination of tastes in the rat

“…Only at the more extended delays (on average 58 sec) did discriminative performance reach chance levels. These delays are quite comparable to those reported with rats and other species when different sensory modalities have been examined within the delayed discrimination procedure (see Cohen et al, 1984;D'Amato & Worsham, 1974;Heise, Keller, Khavari, & Laughlin, 1969;Herman & Gordon, 1974;Honig & Wasserman, 1981;Pontecorvo, 1983;Wallace et al, 1980). Although these delays are comparable to those previously reported, several aspects of the delays should be noted.…”

Memory for tastes in an operant delayed discrimination

“…Requests for reprints should be sent to D. A. Bitler, Psychopharmacology Laboratory, Department of Psychology, The American University , Washington, DC 20016. nature of taste memory, these results closely approximated the delays obtained in delayed discrimination studies employing audiovisual discriminative stimuli (see Cohen , Escott, & Ricciardi, 1984 ;Pontecorvo, 1983;Wallace, Steinert, Scobie, & Spear, 1980). In comparing the discrimination procedure used by Olin and Riley with that utilized in taste aversion learning, several possible explanations for the differences in obtained delays are apparent.…”

Involvement of auditory cortical and hippocampal neurons in auditory working memory and reference memory in the rat

“…The task for WM is an auditory version (Sakurai, 1987) of continuous nonmatching-to-sample (Pontecorvo, 1983). The rat makes go and no-go responses to indicate whether the presented tone is the same as (match) or different from (nonmatch) the tone on the immediately preceding trial.…”