Odor matching and odor memory in the rat.
To assess olfactory matching-to-sample learning, rats were exposed to two odors separated by a 1-s presentation of clean air. If, and only if, the odors were identical, a response produced a water reinforcer. High levels of performance were maintained over a series of 10 novel three-odor matching-to-sample problems on this conditional go/no-go discrimination procedure. In general, performance accuracy improved over problems and errorless or near errorless performance on many stimulus combinations, particularly near the end of training, indicated acquisition of a learning set. There was little decrement in performance when the interstimulus interval was increased gradually from 1 to 10 s and matching-to-sample was not disrupted when a novel odor was presented during the interstimulus interval. These results demonstrate that rats readily learn an olfactory matching-to-sample task, maintain high levels of performance even with delays of 10-s between stimuli, and can acquire a matching-to-sample learning set. The outcomes are in agreement with prior studies demonstrating exceptional learning of instrumental tasks by rats when they are provided with odor cues.
Department of Psychology, American University, Washington, DC 20016.
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XC
Lu
B M
BM
Slotnick
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AM
Silberberg
D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D009812:Odorants; D011340:Problem Solving; D051381:Rats; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012903:Smell