Memory Processing in Primates and Avians

描述（由申请方提供）：将在4个队列中对恒河猴（10只）和鸽子（24只）进行培训和测试，以确定视觉列表记忆的机制以及列表记忆在保持延迟过程中如何变化。不同的队列将提供经验和任务比较，以扩大这些实验的结果。用1-4张图片（旅行幻灯片）的列表和0-30秒的保持延迟进行实验，将测试一些列表项目如何抑制其他列表项目的记忆，以及这种抑制如何随着保持延迟而变化。实验操作列表项目之间的间隔将测试如何抑制列表项目之间的变化与项目分离和保留延迟。实验对象是记忆能力下降（通过重复）的项目，实验将测试这些难记项目的抑制效应是如何改变的，同时保持相同数量的项目和相同的间隔关系。其他实验将测试这些受试者如何通过创建冲突（即，主动干扰）。他们将接受测试，以确定在多大程度上以前的列表项目可以干扰（或增强）他们的记忆表现，从而确定他们是否只使用熟悉度，或者可以接受训练，将他们的决定更多地限制在当前的记忆列表中。作为一个整体，实验被设计成产生收敛的结果，并确定不同的记忆过程如何与保持延迟相互作用和变化，以影响哪些列表项被最好地记住（即，串行位置功能）。这项建议的研究应该是重要的，因为它有助于基本了解两种非语言动物物种的记忆过程，一种与人类关系相对密切（恒河猴），另一种与人类关系较远（鸽子），并将为相关研究提供关键的行为证据（例如，神经生理学）关于记忆是如何工作的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Rhesus monkeys (10) and pigeons (24) will be trained and tested in 4 cohorts to determine the mechanisms of visual list memory and how list memory changes over the course of retention delay. The different cohorts will provide experiential and task comparisons to broaden the findings from these experiments. Experiments with lists of 1-4 pictures (travel slides) and retention delays of 0-30 seconds will test how some list items inhibit memory of other list items and how this inhibition changes with retention delay. Experiments manipulating intervals between list items will test how inhibition among list items changes with item separation and with retention delay. Experiments with items for which memory performance has been degraded (through repetition) will test how the inhibitory effect of these difficult-to-remember items is altered while at the same time maintaining the same number of items and the same interval relationships. Other experiments will test how these subjects decide whether a test item was in the current memory list by creating conflict (i.e., proactive interference). They will be tested for how far back in time previous list items can interfere (or enhance) with their memory performance, thereby determining whether they use familiarity exclusively or can be trained to restrict their decisions more to the current memory list. As a whole, the experiments are designed to produce converging results and determine how different memorial processes interact and change with retention delay to influence which list items are best remembered (i.e., the serial position function). The research of this proposal should be significant in its contributions to a basic understanding of memorial processes in two nonverbal animal species, one relatively closely related to humans (rhesus monkeys) and one distantly related (pigeons), and will provide behavioral evidence critical to related research (e.g., neurophysiological) on how memory works.