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The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Mar 1998Impairments in both recognition memory and concurrent discrimination learning have been shown to follow perirhinal cortex ablation in the monkey. The pattern of these... (Review)
Review
Impairments in both recognition memory and concurrent discrimination learning have been shown to follow perirhinal cortex ablation in the monkey. The pattern of these impairments is consistent with the hypothesis that the perirhinal cortex has a role in the visual identification of objects. In this study we compared the performance of a group of three cynomolgus monkeys with bilateral perirhinal cortex ablation with that of a group of three normal controls in two tasks designed to test this hypothesis more directly. In experiment 1 the subjects relearned a set of 40 familiar concurrent discrimination problems; the stimuli in each trial were digitized images of real objects presented in one of three different views. After attaining criterion they were tested on the same problems using similar, but previously unseen, views of the objects. In experiment 2 the subjects were tested on their ability to perform 10 of these familiar discriminations with each problem presented in the unfamiliar context of a digitized image of a unique complex scene. The subjects with ablations were significantly impaired on both tasks. These results demonstrate that the role of the perirhinal cortex is not restricted to memory, and they support the hypothesis that the perirhinal cortex is involved in visual object identification. We suggest that the perirhinal cortex is crucially involved in processing coherent concepts of individual objects. A deficit of this nature could underlie the pattern of impairments that follow perirhinal cortex damage in both visual object recognition memory and visual associative memory.
Topics: Animals; Computer Graphics; Discrimination Learning; Limbic System; Macaca fascicularis; Male; Memory; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Reference Values
PubMed: 9482811
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.18-06-02268.1998 -
Vision Research Apr 2019A growing body of evidence demonstrates that selective processing of structure conveyed by horizontally oriented spatial frequency components is associated with upright...
A growing body of evidence demonstrates that selective processing of structure conveyed by horizontally oriented spatial frequency components is associated with upright face discrimination accuracy and the magnitude of the face inversion effect. In this study, we examined whether the increase in discrimination accuracy for inverted faces that is known to result from practice would coincide with more selective processing of horizontal structure in inverted faces. To assess this hypothesis, our observers practiced discrimination of inverted faces for three training sessions and we measured accuracy, efficiency relative to an ideal observer, and horizontal selectivity before and after training. As hypothesized, we observed more efficient discrimination and more selective processing of horizontal structure after training. However, the effects of training did not generalize reliably to novel face exemplars.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Discrimination Learning; Discrimination, Psychological; Facial Recognition; Female; Humans; Male; Orientation, Spatial; Photic Stimulation; Young Adult
PubMed: 29678537
DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2018.04.003 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Sep 2003To examine possible heterogeneity of function within the ventral regions of the rodent frontal cortex, the present study compared the effects of excitotoxic lesions of...
Dissociable contributions of the orbitofrontal and infralimbic cortex to pavlovian autoshaping and discrimination reversal learning: further evidence for the functional heterogeneity of the rodent frontal cortex.
To examine possible heterogeneity of function within the ventral regions of the rodent frontal cortex, the present study compared the effects of excitotoxic lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the infralimbic cortex (ILC) on pavlovian autoshaping and discrimination reversal learning. During the pavlovian autoshaping task, in which rats learn to approach a stimulus predictive of reward [conditional stimulus (CS+)], only the OFC group failed to acquire discriminated approach but was unimpaired when preoperatively trained. In the visual discrimination learning and reversal task, rats were initially required to discriminate a stimulus positively associated with reward. There was no effect of either OFC or ILC lesions on discrimination learning. When the stimulus-reward contingencies were reversed, both groups of animals committed more errors, but only the OFC-lesioned animals were unable to suppress the previously rewarded stimulus-reward association, committing more "stimulus perseverative" errors. In contrast, the ILC group showed a pattern of errors that was more attributable to "learning" than perseveration. These findings suggest two types of dissociation between the effects of OFC and ILC lesions: (1) OFC lesions impaired the learning processes implicated in pavlovian autoshaping but not instrumental simultaneous discrimination learning, whereas ILC lesions were unimpaired at autoshaping and their reversal learning deficit did not reflect perseveration, and (2) OFC lesions induced perseverative responding in reversal learning but did not disinhibit responses to pavlovian CS-. In contrast, the ILC lesion had no effect on response inhibitory control in either of these settings. The findings are discussed in the context of dissociable executive functions in ventral sectors of the rat prefrontal cortex.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Cerebral Cortex; Conditioning, Classical; Discrimination Learning; Frontal Lobe; Inhibition, Psychological; Limbic System; Male; Neurotoxins; Photic Stimulation; Rats; Rats, Inbred Strains; Reaction Time; Retention, Psychology; Reversal Learning; Reward; Sensitivity and Specificity
PubMed: 14507977
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.23-25-08771.2003 -
PloS One 2021In social animals, recognizing conspecifics and distinguishing them from other animal species is certainly important. We hypothesize, as demonstrated in other species of...
In social animals, recognizing conspecifics and distinguishing them from other animal species is certainly important. We hypothesize, as demonstrated in other species of ungulates, that horses are able to discriminate between the faces of conspecifics and the faces of other domestic species (cattle, sheep, donkeys and pigs). Our hypothesis was tested by studying inter-and intra-specific visual discrimination abilities in horses through a two-way instrumental conditioning task (discrimination and reversal learning), using two-dimensional images of faces as discriminative stimuli and food as a positive reward. Our results indicate that 8 out of 10 horses were able to distinguish between two-dimensional images of the faces of horses and images showing the faces of other species. A similar performance was obtained in the reversal task. The horses' ability to learn by discrimination is therefore comparable to other ungulates. Horses also showed the ability to learn a reversal task. However, these results were obtained regardless of the images the tested horses were exposed to. We therefore conclude that horses can discriminate between two dimensional images of conspecifics and two dimensional images of different species, however in our study, they were not able to make further subcategories within each of the two categories. Despite the fact that two dimensional images of animals could be treated differently from two dimensional images of non-social stimuli, our results beg the question as to whether a two-dimensional image can replace the real animal in cognitive tests.
Topics: Animals; Animals, Domestic; Cattle; Discrimination Learning; Discrimination, Psychological; Female; Horses; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Recognition, Psychology; Visual Perception
PubMed: 33606816
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247310 -
Learning & Memory (Cold Spring Harbor,... 2001In an appetitive context, honeybees (Apis mellifera) learn to associate odors with a reward of sucrose solution. If an odor is presented immediately before the sucrose,...
In an appetitive context, honeybees (Apis mellifera) learn to associate odors with a reward of sucrose solution. If an odor is presented immediately before the sucrose, an elemental association is formed that enables the odor to release the proboscis extension response (PER). Olfactory conditioning of PER was used to study whether, beyond elemental associations, honeybees are able to process configural associations. Bees were trained in a positive and anegative patterning discrimination problem. In the first problem, single odorants were nonreinforced whereas the compound was reinforced. In the second problem, single odorants were reinforced whereas the compound was nonreinforced. We studied whether bees can solve these problems and whether the ratio between the number of presentations of the reinforced stimuli and the number of presentations of the nonreinforced stimuli affects discrimination. Honeybees differentiated reinforced and nonreinforced stimuli in positive and negative patterning discriminations. They thus can process configural associations. The variation of the ratio of reinforced to nonreinforced stimuli modulated the amount of differentiation. The assignment of singular codes to complex odor blends could be implemented at the neural level: When bees are stimulated with odor mixtures, the activation patterns evoked at the primary olfactory neuropile, the antennal lobe, may be combinations of the single odorant responses that are not necessarily fully additive.
Topics: Animals; Bees; Conditioning, Psychological; Discrimination Learning; Ganglia, Invertebrate; Neuropil; Odorants; Receptors, Odorant; Smell
PubMed: 11274252
DOI: 10.1101/lm.8.2.70 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Feb 2013The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) constitute part of a neural circuit important for adaptive, goal-directed learning. One task measuring...
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and basolateral amygdala (BLA) constitute part of a neural circuit important for adaptive, goal-directed learning. One task measuring flexibility of response to changes in reward is discrimination reversal learning. Damage to OFC produces well documented impairments on various forms of reversal learning in rodents, monkeys, and humans. Recent reports show that BLA, though highly interconnected with OFC, may be differentially involved in reversal learning. In the present experiment, we compared the effects of bilateral, ibotenic acid lesions of OFC or BLA (or SHAM) on visual discrimination and reversal learning. Specifically, we used pairwise visual discrimination methods, as is commonly administered in non-human primate studies, and analyzed how animals use positive and negative trial-by-trial feedback, domains not previously explored in a rat study. As expected, OFC lesions displayed significantly slower reversal learning than SHAM and BLA rats across sessions. Rats with BLA lesions, conversely, showed facilitated reversal learning relative to SHAM and OFC groups. Furthermore, a trial-by-trial analysis of the errors committed showed the BLA group benefited more from incorrectly performed trials (or negative feedback) on future choices than either SHAM or OFC rats. This provides evidence that BLA and OFC are involved in updating responses to changes in reward contingency and that the roles are distinct. Our results are discussed in relation to a competitive framework model for OFC and BLA in reward processing.
Topics: Amygdala; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Choice Behavior; Conditioning, Operant; Discrimination Learning; Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists; Feedback; Food Preferences; Ibotenic Acid; Male; Photic Stimulation; Prefrontal Cortex; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Reversal Learning; Reward
PubMed: 23447618
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4942-12.2013 -
Learning & Memory (Cold Spring Harbor,... 2006We have used a genetically tractable model system, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to study the interdependence between sensory processing and associative... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
We have used a genetically tractable model system, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to study the interdependence between sensory processing and associative processing on learning performance. We investigated the influence of variations in the physical and predictive properties of color stimuli in several different operant-conditioning procedures on the subsequent learning performance. These procedures included context and stimulus generalization as well as color, compound, and conditional discrimination (colors and patterns). A surprisingly complex dependence of the learning performance on the colors' physical and predictive properties emerged, which was clarified by taking into account the fly-subjective perception of the color stimuli. Based on estimates of the stimuli's color and brightness values, we propose that the different tasks are supported by different parameters of the color stimuli; generalization occurs only if the chromaticity is sufficiently similar, whereas discrimination learning relies on brightness differences.
Topics: Animals; Association Learning; Color Perception; Computer Simulation; Conditioning, Operant; Discrimination Learning; Drosophila melanogaster; Female; Flight, Animal; Generalization, Psychological; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Photic Stimulation; Statistics, Nonparametric
PubMed: 17015859
DOI: 10.1101/lm.319406 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... May 2012Animals successfully navigate the world despite having only incomplete information about behaviorally important contingencies. It is an open question to what degree this...
Animals successfully navigate the world despite having only incomplete information about behaviorally important contingencies. It is an open question to what degree this behavior is driven by estimates of stochastic parameters (brain-constructed models of the experienced world) and to what degree it is directed by reinforcement-driven processes that optimize behavior in the limit without estimating stochastic parameters (model-free adaptation processes, such as associative learning). We find that mice adjust their behavior in response to a change in probability more quickly and abruptly than can be explained by differential reinforcement. Our results imply that mice represent probabilities and perform calculations over them to optimize their behavior, even when the optimization produces negligible material gain.
Topics: Algorithms; Animals; Choice Behavior; Discrimination Learning; Exploratory Behavior; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Models, Psychological; Reinforcement, Psychology
PubMed: 22592792
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1205131109 -
Journal of Experimental Zoology. Part... Nov 2019Wild-caught European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were exposed to a learning task to determine whether heart rate (HR) and behavior responses to the learning activated...
Wild-caught European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) were exposed to a learning task to determine whether heart rate (HR) and behavior responses to the learning activated the sympathetic nervous system. Birds learned to discriminate between images of opposite convexity (concave and convex) based on shading cues in a closed economy (food only available through task completion). Once learned, the task was changed in three ways: (a) manipulating the angle and shape of the image; (b) altering the availability of the task; and (c) reversing the positive stimulus. HR, used as an index of catecholamine release, was measured during each change to determine whether having to alter previously established behaviors to learn new behaviors elicited a sympathetic response. Starlings decreased their HR during the initial discrimination training and did not alter their HR when presented with modified images or when the positive stimulus was reversed. However, HR increased when the task became unavailable and decreased upon its return, suggesting that preventing task performance was perceived as stressful. Birds also modified their behavior when tasks were changed. The number of trials per minute decreased during the reversal treatment, as did the success rate, suggesting that starlings may try to conserve energy when access to food diminishes. This is also supported by the decrease in perch hops per minute when the task was unavailable and the subsequent increase upon its return. Overall, these results suggest that learning per se does not activate the sympathetic nervous system and, therefore, is not a stressor for wild birds.
Topics: Animals; Behavior, Animal; Discrimination Learning; Female; Heart Rate; Locomotion; Male; Reversal Learning; Starlings; Visual Perception
PubMed: 31541543
DOI: 10.1002/jez.2319 -
Neuron Aug 2006The basic psychophysical principle of speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) has been used to understand key aspects of neuronal information processing in vision and audition,... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
The basic psychophysical principle of speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) has been used to understand key aspects of neuronal information processing in vision and audition, but the principle of SAT is still debated in olfaction. In this study we present the direct observation of SAT in olfaction. We developed a behavioral paradigm for mice in which both the duration of odorant sampling and the difficulty of the odor discrimination task were controlled by the experimenter. We observed that the accuracy of odor discrimination increases with the duration of imposed odorant sampling, and that the rate of this increase is slower for harder tasks. We also present a unifying picture of two previous, seemingly disparate experiments on timing of odorant sampling in odor discrimination tasks. The presence of SAT in olfaction provides strong evidence for temporal integration in olfaction and puts a constraint on models of olfactory processing.
Topics: Animals; Discrimination Learning; Male; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Psychomotor Performance; Reaction Time; Smell; Stimulation, Chemical
PubMed: 16880129
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2006.07.013