CONTROLLED & AUTOMATIC COGNITION IN MONKEYS: DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW MODEL SYSTEM

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. In humans a fundamental distinction is made between memories that are consciously accessible (explicit or declarative) and those that are nonconscious (implicit or nondeclarative). Historically this distinction has depended on verbal reports of private experience (e.g. "I knew" versus "I guessed"), making it impossible to apply to nonverbal animals. Furthermore, because more than one memory system may contribute to solution of a given cognitive task, equating performance in specific tasks with the function of a specific memory system is problematic. Process dissociation procedures (PDPs) offer a potential solution to these problem. PDP does not depend on verbal reports to distinguish between memory processes, and can therefore be used with nonverbal organisms. Furthermore, by presuming simultaneously active memory processes, PDP avoids the pitfalls of ascribing specific memory processes to specific tasks, and rather quantifies the relative contributions of automatic (implicit) and controlled (explicit) memory processes in a single cognitive task. Monkeys have been trained and tested in the PDP procedure which involves modified matching training in which certain stimuli are over-represented so as to instill memory habits in the monkeys. We have observed contributions of both habit and memory. We have also been taking as second approach to this problem by examining how rhesus monkeys cope with conflicting information in memory tasks, specifically when they hear a monkey voice that does not match with the monkey face.