Impaired acquisition of a simultaneous brightness discrimination by cortically and hippocampally lesioned rats

Woodruff, Michael L.; B, Schneiderman; Isaacson, Robert L.

doi:10.3758/bf03328958

Cited by 29 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Because cortical control subjects have the anterior portion of primary and secondary visual cortices removed, they might be expected to acquire a difficult brightness discrimination more slowly than nonoperated. The present results and another recent report (Woodruff, Schneiderman, & Isaacson, 1972) do, in fact, indicate that cortical control rats learn a difficult brightness discrimination more slowly than nonoperated. Results obtained with NBCC and NDCC subjects are also in accord with the earlier report that posterior neodecorticate and nonoperated rats trained to select the brighter alternative are not different, but posterior neodecorticates are impaired when trained to select the dimmer (Parker, Erickson, & Treichler, 1969).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Rats with hippocampal damage acquire a 2-bar operant brightness discrimination more slowly than nonoperated rats, but this task requires shaping and continuous-reinforcement training prior to discrimination training Woodruff, Schneiderman, & Isaacson, 1972). Since the amount and type of pretraining are important in determining whether hippocampus-damaged animals will be impaired in learning tasks (e.g., Ellen, Aitken, & Walker, 1973;Winocur & Mills, 1970), deficits of these rats in a 2-bar discrimination task may be due to prior continuous-reinforcement training.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Brightness discrimination of pretrained and nonpretrained hippocampal rats reinforced for choosing brighter or dimmer alternatives.

Bauer

1974

Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

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Experimentally naive and pretrained hippocampeotomized, cortical control, and nonoperated rats were trained to choose either the brighter or dimmer arm of a Y-maze for water reinforcement. Nonpretrained hippocampectomized rats and to a lesser extent cortical control rats, initially preferred the dimmer arms of the maze. Nonpretrained hippocampectomized, cortical control, and nonoperated rats reinforced for entering the brighter arm did not differ, but when reinforced for entering the dimmer arm nonoperated subjects were superior to cortical controls and both groups were superior to hippocampectomized. Pretrained animals acquired the discrimination more slowly than nonpretrained, but this deficit was greater for hippocampectomized subjects. The results were discussed in terms of the inability of hippocampectomized animals to direct their responses toward those cues leading to reinforcement.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Brightness discrimination of pretrained and nonpretrained hippocampal rats reinforced for choosing brighter or dimmer alternatives.

Bauer

1974

Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

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“…So perhaps a sensory impairment, possibly stemming from extrahippocampal damage, rather than a memorial impairment resulting from hippocampal damage, underlies Woodruff& Whittington's results. This might account for the observation that both cortical and hippocampal lesions equivalently impair acquisition of a simultaneous brightness discrimination in rats (Woodruff, Schneiderman & Isaacson 1972).…”

Section: Task Classificationmentioning

confidence: 92%

Associations across time: The hippocampus as a temporary memory store

1985

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All recent memory theories of hippocampal function have incorporated the idea that the hippocampus is required to process items only of some qualitatively specifiahle kind, and is not required to process items of some complementary set. In contrast, it is now proposed that the hippocampus is needed to process stimuli of all kinds, but only when there is a need to associate those stimuli with other events that are temporally discontiguous. In order to form or use temporally discontiguous associations, it is essential to maintain some memory of the first component until the second component has occurred. When the temporal gap to he spanned is small, and the number of items to be temporarily retained is low, a limited-capacity, short-term store is sufficient to allow associations to be formed. Such a store is presumed to operate in parallel with the hippocampus in normal animals. Hippocampal damage disrupts a much higher-capacity store that has a slower decay rate, and so leaves animals with only a very limited ability to form temporally discontiguous associations. Hippocampal damage, however, is not held to affect the long-term storage of associations of any kind, if they can be formed. Analyses of both new and existing data are presented to show that by classifying tasks in terms of the need to use a temporary memory store to retain temporally discontiguous information one can cut right across existing classifications as well as achieve a better fit to the data. The hippocampus thus seems best described as a high-capacity, intermediate-term memory store.

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“…Foshee 1967, Duncan andDuncan 1971) or other stereotyped behaviours interfering with proper discrimination (e.g. Isaacson 1972, Woodruff, Schneiderman, andIsaacson 1972). We return to a fuller discussion of persistent habits in hippocampal animals later (p. 337ff).…”

Section: Discrimination and Maze Learning 281mentioning

confidence: 99%