Problem solving in the rat: Stay vs. shift solutions on the three-table task

Herrmann, Thom; Bahr, Eleanor; Bremner, Becky; Ellen, Paul

doi:10.3758/bf03212044

Cited by 73 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It might be suspected that the increased activity of the normal animals could be due to the approaching onset of the feeding phase, which would provide incentive motivation. Since the medial frontal animals failed to show an increase in table entries toward the end of the exploratory period, the possibility exists that the medial frontal deficit may derive from a failure of the feeding experience to inform the animal as to the locus and/or availability of food (Herrmann et al, 1982). This would suggest that the medial frontal deficit is related more to the nature of the information available during the feeding experience than to the information obtained during exploration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Spatial problem solving in the rat following medial frontal lesions

1985

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Spatial problem solving in the rat following medial frontal lesions

1985

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Third, Olton and Schlosberg used a depletable reward and a radial maze in their experiment. As the present experiment and Herrmann et al (1982) show, both of these factors favor spontaneous alternation, thus favoring performance of the win-shift task. Perhaps Olton and Schlosberg's results would have been different had they used a parallel maze or a nondepletable reward or both.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…Spontaneous alternation occurs regardless of whether the animal is returned to the choice point by the experimenter (Dennis, 1935) or returns on its own (Dennis & Sollenberger, 1934). The tendency to spontaneous alternation is weakened by the animal's familiarity with the choices offered (Gaffan & Davies, 1981) and by the animal's being allowed to consume only part of the reward found in the goal (Herrmann, Bahr, Bremner, & Ellen, 1982).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of maze structure upon the performance of a multiple-goal task

Horner

1984

Animal Learning & Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ability of rats to find food in three kinds of mazes (radial, parallel, antiradial) was studied. Each maze had eight goalboxes. All goals were baited at the beginning of a trial, and the animal's task was to retrieve food from all eight goals. The task was divided into two phases. In the first phase, the animal was allowed access to four randomly chosen goalboxes. Once the animal had visited all four of the goals, the second phase of the trial began, in which the animal was allowed access to all eight goalboxes. The animals showed a strong initial tendency to avoid already visited goalboxes in the radial maze, but not in the parallel maze. In the antiradial maze, the animals showed a strong initial tendency to avoid already visited goalboxes during the first phase of the trial, but not in the second phase. Significant improvement in performance over sessions was seen only in groups that did not have a strong initial tendency to avoid already visited goalboxes. These data suggest that maze structure influences performance by producing different initial patterns of exploration that may be either appropriate or inappropriate to the multiple-goal task.

show abstract

“…The animals remained in the carrying cage until they were returned to their home cage. Care was taken to ensure that food was left on the table when the animals were removed (Herrman et al, 1982). The animals were then individually tested by being placed one at a time on one of the unbaited tables, which was designated as the start On each test trial, the schedule of start and food tables was quasi-randomized to keep the animals from learning a particular place or turn strategy.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problem solving in the rat: Piecemeal acquisition of cognitive maps

Ellen

Soteres

Wages

1984

Animal Learning & Behavior

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this experiment was to compare the problem-solving performance of rats allowed to explore either one or two tables of Maier's three-table-problem apparatus on successive days. The feeding &xperience and test trial were administered on the day after all tables and runways had been explored in this piecemeal fashion. No rat that explored only one table and runway per day was able to solve the problem, whereas 60% of the rats that explored two tables and their interconnecting runways did solve the problem. All rats that explored the entire apparatus on each exploratory day were able to solve the problem. These data support the notion that animals can conceptually link objects experienced successively into cognitive representations which specify the constant relationships existing between those objects. The existence of such an absolute spatial mechanism makes it unnecessary for an organism to depend upon relative spatial mechanisms such as routes or cues.In recent years the concept of a cognitive map has become a major theoretical construct in theories of spatial cognition. Although first introduced by Tolman (1948), the cognitive map concept received its most sophisticated treatment by O' Keefe and Nadel (1978), inasmuch as they elaborated a number of major properties of cognitive maps. Specifically, cognitive maps were differentiated from systems that relied on extant cues and orientations in the guidance of behavior. For example, a cognitive map allows an animal to react to stimuli that are not immediately present (i.e., act at a distance). Additionally, it is an information structure in which the distance and direction between various environmental objects are specified. Another property of a cognitive map is that it allows organisms "to link together conceptually parts of an environment which have never been experienced at the same time" (O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978, p. 2). It is to this latter property of a cognitive map that this paper is addressed.Inasmuch as organisms acquire information about a region by virtue of exploratory activity (O'Keefe & Nadel, 1978) and inasmuch as this process involves a series of successive experiences, such information must be transformed into a cognitive structure in which the distance and direction between the various successively experienced objects are indicated before it can be used in the solving of problems such as the A version of this paper was presented at the Seventy-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Atlanta, GA, March 3I-April 2, 1983, and at the Sixtieth Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science, April 22-23, 1983. The patience of Martha Turner and Majella Hardie in the typing of various versions of this manuscript is appreciated. The authors' mailing address is: Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, University Plaza, Atlanta, GA 30303.taking of the shortest route to food, etc. Spatial information results when various objects in a cognitive representation exist as a simultaneous pattern rat...

show abstract

Problem solving in the rat: Stay vs. shift solutions on the three-table task

Cited by 73 publications

References 11 publications

Spatial problem solving in the rat following medial frontal lesions

Spatial problem solving in the rat following medial frontal lesions

The effect of maze structure upon the performance of a multiple-goal task

Problem solving in the rat: Piecemeal acquisition of cognitive maps

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About