Knowledge of the ordinal position of list items in pigeons.

Scarf, Damian; Colombo, Michael

doi:10.1037/a0023695

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Practically, the number of times long trains occur in both pattern and random blocks are too sparse to directly compare. For example, there are 4 7 possible combinations of seven-item trains given four possible key-press positions, although this would be lessened by lack of repeated key-presses from the task. For this reason, we focused on shorter ‘in-place’ and ‘out-place’ triplets and quadruplets, and then removed calculated contributions from higher order transitions (fourth and up for quadruplet-based analyses, third and up for triplet-based analyses).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Learning of transitions is present in humans (who can learn transition probabilities from up to six items prior 6 ) and monkeys (who can learn transitions between consecutive items 5,9 ), but not in pigeons 9 . On the other hand, learning the ordinal position of events in four-item lists has been demonstrated in humans 8 , monkeys 3 and pigeons 7 . In a real-life setting, for an experienced pianist, familiarity with frequencies of movement-to-movement transitions within a musical key can lead to faster performance of a new song that is written in a key rather than out of key, while each new song within a key can be unique, with this uniqueness represented by the ordinal position of each of the movements.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Practice and sleep form different aspects of skill

Song

Cohen

2014

Nat Commun

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Performance for skills such as a sequence of finger movements improves during sleep. This has widely been interpreted as evidence for a role of sleep in strengthening skill learning. Here we propose a different interpretation. We propose that practice and sleep form different aspects of skill. To show this, we train 80 subjects on a sequence of key-presses and test at different time points to determine the amount of skill stored in transition (that is, pressing ‘2’ after ‘3’ in ‘4-3-2-1’) and ordinal (that is, pressing ‘2’ in the third ordinal position in ‘4-3-2-1’) forms. We find transition representations improve with practice and ordinal representations improve during sleep. Further, whether subjects can verbalize the trained sequence affects the formation of ordinal but not transition representations. Verbal knowledge itself does not increase over sleep. Thus, sleep encodes different representations of memory than practice, and may mediate conversion of memories between declarative and procedural forms.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Practice and sleep form different aspects of skill

Song

Cohen

2014

Nat Commun

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“…Previous research with humans (Henson, 1998; Merritt and Terrace, 2011) and animals (Scarf and Colombo, 2011; Terrace, 2005) shows that, in some tests of memory for order, the underlying cognitive representation codes list position. For example, with extensive training monkeys learn to touch a set of five simultaneously presented and randomly arranged images in a pre-defined order.…”

Section: Experiments 3 Evaluating the Influence Of List Positionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive mechanisms of memory for order in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Templer

Hampton

2012

Hippocampus

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One important aspect of episodic memory is the ability to remember the order in which events occurred. Memory for sequences in rats and has been shown to rely on the hippocampus and medial prefrontal cortex (DeVito and Eichenbaum, J Neuro 2011; 31: 3169–3175; Fortin et al., Nat Neuro 2002; 5:458–462). Rats with hippocampal lesions were impaired in selecting the odor that had appeared earlier in a sequence of five odors but were not impaired in recognition of previously sampled odors (Fortin et al., 2002; Kesner et al., Behav Neuro 2002; 116:286–290). These results suggest that order is not represented by relative familiarity or memory strength. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying memory for order have not been determined. We presented monkeys with lists of five images drawn randomly from a pool of 6,000 images. At test, two images were presented and monkeys were rewarded for selecting the image that had appeared earlier in the studied list. Monkeys learned to discriminate the order of the images, even those that were consecutive in the studied list. In subsequent experiments we found that discrimination of order was not controlled by list position or relative memory strength. Instead, monkeys used temporal order, a mechanism that appears to encode order of occurrence relative to other events, rather than in absolute time. We found that number of intervening images, rather than passage of time per se, most strongly determined the discriminability of order of occurrence. Better specifying the cognitive mechanisms nonhuman primates use to remember the order of events enhances this animal model of episodic memory, and may further inform our understanding of the functions of the hippocampus.

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“…Research with sequential tasks implemented on touch-sensitive screens has shown that rhesus monkeys can learn a sequence of items (e.g., four distinct pictures) when given incremental training starting with the first item in the list (Swartz et al 1991) or when given progressively complex trial-and-error learning conditions (Swartz et al 2000). Animals can also develop knowledge of the ordinal positions of specific items in a sequence (D'Amato and Colombo 1988;Harris et al 2007;Pfuhl and Biegler 2012;Scarf and Colombo 2011). Crucially, relating items (i.e., images) in a sequence does not require verbal ability, as shown by the mastery of sequential lists by pigeons and monkeys (Swartz et al 1991) and improvements in performance with greater expertise (Terrace et al 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sequential recall of meaningful and arbitrary sequences by orangutans and human children: Does content matter?

2015

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Do visual cues such as size, color, and number facilitate sequential recall in orangutans and human children? In Experiment 1, children and adult orangutans solved two types of sequences, arbitrary (unrelated pictures) and meaningful (pictures varied along a spectrum according to the size, color, or number of items shown), in a touchscreen paradigm. It was found that visual cues did not increase the percentage of correct responses for either children or orangutans. In order to demonstrate that the failure to spontaneously seriate along these dimensions was not due to a general inability to perceive the dimensions nor to an inability to seriate items, in Experiment 2, orangutans were trained on one type of sequence and tested on novel sequences organized according to the same rule (i.e., pictures varied on the number spectrum only). The orangutans performed significantly better on novel meaningful sequences in this task than on novel arbitrary sequences. These results indicate that, while orangutans and human children share the ability to learn how to order items according to their size, color, or number, both orangutans and humans lack a cognitive propensity to spontaneously (i.e., without prior training or enculturation) order multiple items by size, color, or number.

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Knowledge of the ordinal position of list items in pigeons.

Cited by 28 publications

References 29 publications

Practice and sleep form different aspects of skill

Practice and sleep form different aspects of skill

Cognitive mechanisms of memory for order in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Sequential recall of meaningful and arbitrary sequences by orangutans and human children: Does content matter?

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