Signal detection theory and memory for asymmetric events

描述(由申请人提供)：这项拟议的研究旨在测试各种理论，这些理论已经被提出来解释人的记忆 动物事件的持续时间。利益的核心现象被称为 “选择做空”效应。选择空头效应指的是，不 无论实际呈现的持续时间是多少，鸽子往往会记住 持续时间很短。一种著名的理论认为，日益增长的 报告短样本作为保留间隔出现的趋势 增加意味着事件的记忆持续时间随着 随着时间的推移。对这一现象的另外三种解释认为， 源于这样一个事实：持续时间短的事件更像是 除了一个持续时间较长的事件，什么都不是。因此，当回忆 最终褪色为零(就像当保持间隔较长时所做的那样)， 鸟类倾向于选择两个可用选项中较好的一个(即，它们报告 提交了简短的样品)。另一种解释是鸟类 有能力将名义上的辨别任务转化为信号 检测任务。信号检测框架被用来解释 二十多年来对人类识别记忆的研究发现， 但它与动物记忆的相关性还没有得到广泛的研究。因为 探测理论提供了两个物种共有的理论框架，它 有助于促进相关记忆动物模型的发展 对人类的损害。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research is designed to test a variety of theories that have been advanced to explain memory for the duration of an event in animals. The core phenomenon of interest is known as the "choose-short" effect. The choose-short effect refers to the fact that, no matter which duration was actually presented, pigeons tend to remember the duration as having been short. One well-known theory holds that the increasing tendency to report that the short sample occurred as the retention interval increases implies that the remembered duration of an event shrinks with the passage of time. Three other accounts of this phenomenon assume that the result stems from the fact that an event that is short in duration is more like "nothing" than an event that is long in duration. As such, when memories eventually fade to nothing (as they do when the retention interval is long), birds tend to select the better of the two available options (i.e., they report that the short sample was presented). Yet another explanation is that birds have the capacity to transform a nominal discrimination task into a signal detection task. The signal-detection framework has been used to interpret findings from studies on human recognition memory for more than two decades, but its relevance to animal memory has not been widely investigated. Because detection theory offers a theoretical framework common to both species, it could help to facilitate the development of relevant animal models of memory impairment in humans.