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Author (up) Pickens, C.L.; Holland, P.C.
Title Conditioning and cognition Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Abbreviated Journal Neurosci Biobehav Rev
Volume 28 Issue 7 Pages 651-661
Keywords Animals; Association Learning/physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Conditioning (Psychology)/*physiology; Discrimination Learning/physiology; Humans; Memory; Models, Psychological; Reinforcement (Psychology); Visual Perception/physiology
Abstract Animals' abilities to use internal representations of absent objects to guide adaptive behavior and acquire new information, and to represent multiple spatial, temporal, and object properties of complex events and event sequences, may underlie many aspects of human perception, memory, and symbolic thought. In this review, two classes of simple associative learning tasks that address these core cognitive capacities are discussed. The first set, including reinforcer revaluation and mediated learning procedures, address the power of Pavlovian conditioned stimuli to gain access, through learning, to representations of upcoming events. The second set of investigations concern the construction of complex stimulus representations, as illustrated in studies of contextual learning, the conjunction of explicit stimulus elements in configural learning procedures, and recent studies of episodic-like memory. The importance of identifying both cognitive process and brain system bases of performance in animal models is emphasized.
Address Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0149-7634 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15555675 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2803
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Author (up) Sarter, M.
Title Animal cognition: defining the issues Type Journal Article
Year 2004 Publication Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Abbreviated Journal Neurosci Biobehav Rev
Volume 28 Issue 7 Pages 645-650
Keywords Animals; Behavior, Animal/*physiology; Cognition/*physiology; Humans; *Models, Animal; Psychopharmacology/methods; Reproducibility of Results
Abstract The assessment of cognitive functions in rodents represents a critical experimental variable in many research fields, ranging from the basic cognitive neurosciences to psychopharmacology and neurotoxicology. The increasing use of animal behavioral tests as 'assays' for the assessment of effects on learning and memory has resulted in a considerable heterogeneity of data, particularly in the field of behavioral and psycho pharmacology. The limited predictive validity of changes in behavioral performance observed in standard animal tests of learning and memory indicates that a renewed effort to scrutinize the validity of these tests is warranted. In humans, levels of processing (effortful vs. automatic) and categories of information (procedural vs. episodic/declarative) are important variables of cognitive operations. The design of tasks that assess the recall of 'episodic' or 'declarative' information appears to represent a particular challenge for research using laboratory rodents. For example, the hypothesis that changes in inspection time for a previously encountered place or object are based on the recall of declarative/episodic information requires substantiation. In order to generalize findings on the effects of neuronal or pharmacological manipulations on learning and memory, obtained from one species and one task, to other species and other tasks, the mediating role of important sets of variables which influence learning and memory (e.g. attentional, affective) needs to be determined. Similar to the view that a neuronal manipulation (e.g. a lesion) represents a theory of the condition modeled (e.g. a degenerative disorder), an animal behavioral task represents a theory of the behavioral/cognitive process of interest. Therefore, the test of hypotheses regarding the validity of procedures used to assess cognitive functions in animals is an inherent part of the research process.
Address Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 4032 East Hall, 525 E. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1109, USA. msarter@umich.edu
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication Editor
Language English Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0149-7634 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes PMID:15555674 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2804
Permanent link to this record