Presence of Short-Term Memory After Immediate Posttrial Subconvulsive Current in Chicks

Less-than-expected variability in evidence for three stages in memory formation: A response.

“…The data given in Table 1 suggest that, except during the short-term memory (STM) stage of our model (up to 10 mm postlearmng, Gibbs & Ng, 1977), retention levels of chicks trained on a passive-avoidance task very rarely exceed 80-85% Furthermore, variability tends to be somewhat small among retention levels for TTIs beyond our STM stage. These findings are consistent with ours, although the variability observed in the studies reported in Table 1 generally yield chi-squares with p > 0.1 With respect to the latter, however, it may be noted that these studies either have large sample sizes (Cherkin, 1969;Lee-Teng, 1968;Lee-Teng et al, 1970) or a small number of TTIs (Bailey et al, 1969;Bell & Morgan, 1981, Stephenson & Andrew, 1981 or both A possible implication of the rather ubiquitous empirical retention ceiling of 80-85% is of interest to the issues raised by Roberts Taking a sample of 20, for convenience, the results from various studies suggest that 3-4 chicks in any group of 20, which apparently satisfy the criteria of training used, do not retain memory for the learned association beyond 10 mm postlearmng. If this is a relatively fixed natural retention ceiling, for whatever reason, then it may be argued that the effective sample size for any TTI longer than 10 mm postlearmng is not 20 but say 17.…”

“…This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly. Andrew , Bell & Morgan, 1981 or a similar experimental paradigm (Bailey, Garman, & Cherkin, 1969, Cherkin, 1969. Lee-Teng, 1968Lee-Teng, Magnus, Kanner, & Hochman, 1970) to ours Three characteristics of this table are noteworthy (a) Relatively few TTIs yield percentages of avoidance greater than 85% (b) With the exception of one TTI from Lee-Teng et al (1970), all other TTIs with percentage of avoidance greater than 85% were TTIs of 10 mm or less, (c) Below 85% avoidance, the distribution is markedly negatively skewed, with the majority of TTIs yielding percentages between 70 and 82 5…”

“…Table 1 summarizes frequency distributions of percentage of chicks avoiding the aversive training lure at different TTIs from a number of studies using the same (Stephenson & Andrew, 1981; Bell & Morgan, 1981) or a similar experimental paradigm (Bailey, Garman, & Cherkin, 1969; Cherkin, 1969; Lee-Teng, 1968; Lee-Teng, Magnus, Kanner, & Hochman, 1970) to ours. Three characteristics of this table are noteworthy: (a) Relatively few TTIs yield percentages of avoidance greater than 85%.…”

“…These findings are consistent with ours, although the variability observed in the studies reported in Table 1 generally yield chi-squares with p > 0.1. With respect to the latter, however, it may be noted that these studies either have large sample sizes (Cherkin, 1969; Lee-Teng, 1968; Lee-Teng et al, 1970) or a small number of TTIs (Bailey et al, 1969; Bell & Morgan, 1981; Stephenson & Andrew, 1981) or both.…”