Serial position effects and duration of memory for nonspatial stimuli in rats.
Recognition memory for lists of nonspatial items was tested in rats using a nonmatching-to-sample task. The recency effect at short retention intervals disappeared as the interval increased, but primacy did not develop although responding was still above chance up to 2 hr after 10-s sample times. Neither proactive nor retroactive interference was apparent. Rats transferred the nonmatching-to-sample rule to completely novel stimuli. The study failed to replicate the prominent U-shaped serial position curve found in a similar study by P. Reed, T. Chih-Ta, J.P. Aggleton, and J.N.P. Rawlins (1991), for which E.A. Gaffan and D. Gaffan (1992) had found the data less variable than expected. Evidence of primacy in this procedure remains insubstantial.
Deacon
R M
RM
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, England.
Rawlins
J N
JN
D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009949:Orientation; D051381:Rats; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012691:Serial Learning