The effects of maze-arm length on performance in the radial-arm maze

Brown, Michael F.

doi:10.3758/bf03205234

Cited by 25 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…These data extend Brown's (1990) work demonstrating the influence of the length of the arms and the work of Yoerg and Kamil (1982) showing the importance of the size of the central arena. The observed differences in performance due to these three modifications in shape of the radial maze are attributed to the use of different strategies of exploration and cost/ benefit analyses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…In fact, when the task was complicated by an interruption, the rats on the maze with variable tilts made even fewer errors than did the ones on the standard radial maze. These results indicate either that tilts in a radial maze were used as additional cues facilitating the discrimination of the eight arms or that the "increased cost" of the visits of the tilted arms resulted in a higher "choice criterion" for tilted arms (see Brown, 1990). However, during the rotation procedure, arm tilting produced no apparent advantage.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

“…However, Brown (1990) recently demonstrated that a simple change in radial-maze arm length dramatically reduced the efficiency of the animals. This author indicated that the observed performances were probably not caused by poorer discrimination of the short arms but more likely resulted from a modification of the choice criterion for visiting short arms that either lowered fear or produced a difference in the cost/ benefit analysis of choices between short and long arms.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The influence of spatial irregularity upon radial-maze performance in the rat

Grobéty

Schenk

1992

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The influence of spatial irregularity upon radial-maze performance in the rat

Grobéty

Schenk

1992

Animal Learning & Behavior

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“…Increased travel time and richer stimulus environment may result in better performance (see, e.g., Brown, 1990;Crystal & Shettleworth, 1994), but there seems to be little basis on which to expect qualitatively different results in the two environments. Indeed, both quantitative and qualitative differences between species have been found to hold between testing environments (see Shettleworth, 1995).…”

Section: ·mentioning

confidence: 99%

Proactive interference, recency, and associative strength: Comparisons of black-capped chickadees and dark-eyed juncos

Hampton

Shettleworth

Westwood

1998

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Black-capped chickadees (parus atricapillus) and dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) were required to match to the last item from a series of up to three stimuli differing in both location and color. When rewarded for pecking the target stimulus during the study phase of each series, black-capped chickadees demonstrated proactive interference (PI) from stimuli presented prior to the target, whereas juncos did not. When they made an error, chickadees were more likely than were juncos to choose a distractor from the study series rather than a novel stimulus. When reward was no longer associated with presentation of the final target sample in a series, juncos also suffered PI. These results indicate that chickadees and juncos differ in the degree to which the recency of stimuli and the associative strength of stimuli control correct matching.Over the past 15 years, scatter-hoarding birds have been the focus of numerous studies aimed at characterizing specializations of memory that are thought to be related to their dependence on memory for many individual food cache sites (

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“…In Experiment 2, the possibility that increased effort to enter arms of the maze might improve tracking was examined by presenting rats with the same patterns used in Experiment 1 but with the additional requirement that rats climb a barrier to enter the arms. Brown (1990;Brown & Huggins, 1993;Brown & Lesniak-Karpiak, 1993) has found that rats more accurately avoid errors on radial maze arms when the effort required to enter these arms has been increased. He suggests that improved accuracy under effortful conditions can best be understood as a shift in choice criterion.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiple-pattern learning by rats on an eight-arm radial maze

Wathen

Roberts

1994

Animal Learning & Behavior

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Rats were trained over a number of sessions on an eight-arm radial maze with eight trials on each session. Each of four arms on the maze contained a different pattern formed by sequences of reward (two pellets) or nonreward (no pellets) over successive trials within sessions. The patterns were single alternation, double alternation, and two patterns in which four rewards or four nonrewards were preceded and followed by two nonrewards or two rewards, respectively. The other four arms on the maze served as control arms and always contained one pellet. It was found that rats tracked all of these patterns when they were required to climb over barriers to enter and leave arms. However, rats showed no ability to extrapolate patterns beyond the training trials. These findings, and a further analysis of arm-choice stereotypy, led to the conclusion that rats tracked by using a trial-number strategy.Phelps and Roberts (1991) reported three experiments in which quantity of reward was varied across trials on each arm of a four-arm radial maze within daily sessions. It was found that rats could track two patterns simultaneously over successive trials. In two experiments, these patterns consisted of either (1) long strings of reward or nonreward or (2) single-and double-alternation patterns of reward and nonreward. In another experiment, monotonically increasing. and decreasing patterns of reward magnitude were used. Pattern tracking was measured by the order in which arms of the maze were entered within successive trials. Accurate tracking of these predictable patterns was indicated by low ranks of arm entry on trials when an arm contained reward and high ranks of arm entry on trials when an arm contained nonreward. Patterns that changed in a less predictable, quasi-random manner were not well tracked.Tracking on the radial maze was studied further in three experiments reported here, in which procedures different from those employed by Phelps and Roberts were used. The four-arm radial maze used by Phelps and Roberts puts a severe limitation on the number of patterns that can be studied. Problems arise if four predictable patterns are used, one assigned to each arm of the maze. All four patterns may program a reward on the same trial. Because the arms of the maze can only be entered in sequential order, it is necessary that one rewarded arm will be entered first and be assigned the lowest possible rank of 1, whereas another rewarded arm will be

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The effects of maze-arm length on performance in the radial-arm maze

Cited by 25 publications

References 23 publications

The influence of spatial irregularity upon radial-maze performance in the rat

The influence of spatial irregularity upon radial-maze performance in the rat

Proactive interference, recency, and associative strength: Comparisons of black-capped chickadees and dark-eyed juncos

Multiple-pattern learning by rats on an eight-arm radial maze

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