S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Papers 210–216 Saturday Afternoon
Animal Learning
Beacon A, Saturday Afternoon, 1:30–2:50
Chaired by Aaron P. Blaisdell, UCLA
1:30–1:45 (210)
Development of an Automated Open Field for Examining Learning
and Cognition in Pigeons. KENNETH J. LEISING, MICHAEL
PARENTEAU, DENNIS GARLICK, STEVE BADELT, & AARON P.
BLAISDELL, UCLA (read by Aaron P. Blaisdell)—We report behavioral
experiments with pigeons using a new technology developed in
our lab. The Automated Remote Environmental Navigation Apparatus
(ARENA) consists of a network of stimulus–response modules
that communicate wirelessly with a central computer. Pigeons were
first autoshaped with grain reinforcement to peck at an ARENA module.
Second, they rapidly learned a simultaneous color-discrimination
using two ARENA modules. Third, pigeons acquired a conditional
discrimination in which two ARENA modules were simultaneously lit
with one of six colors—three colors signaling one module as the S+
and three colors signaling the other module as the S+. Finally, an array
of eight ARENA modules was used to demonstrate overshadowing,
with some modules serving as landmarks and others as response
goals. Landmarks closer to the goal overshadowed spatial control by
more distal landmarks. We demonstrate many advantages to automated
open-field data collection, including reduced experimenter bias
and increased consistency and throughput.
1:50–2:05 (211)
Parallels Between Second-Order Conditioned Excitation and
Conditioned Inhibition. GONZALO P. URCELAY, JAMES E. WIT-
NAUER, & RALPH R. MILLER, Binghamton University (read by
Ralph R. Miller)—Experiments conducted in our laboratory have suggested
that feature negative training (A+/AX�) results in secondorder
excitation to X after relatively few AX� trials and conditioned
inhibition after many AX� trials. Parallel results can also be obtained
when the context instead of a punctuate cue A mediates these excitatory
and inhibitory effects (i.e., explicitly unpaired presentations of +
and X�). In this presentation, we will review different manipulations
(trial spacing, CS preexposure, and posttraining extinction) that result
in symmetrical (but behaviorally opposing) effects on second-order
excitation and conditioned inhibition. These basic phenomena
(second-order excitation and conditioned inhibition) and the effect of
different manipulations that impact these processes are readily explained
by SOCR, a formal version of the extended comparator hypothesis
(Stout & Miller, in press). These provocative results provide
empirical grounds for further theoretical developments that explain
second-order excitation and conditioned inhibition within a single
framework.
2:10–2:25 (212)
Backward Blocking in First-Order Conditioning. KOUJI URUSHI-
HARA, University of Hokkaido, & RALPH R. MILLER, Binghamton
University—Three lick suppression experiments with rats investigated
backward blocking in first-order conditioning. The experiments
demonstrated that backward blocking is difficult to obtain in conventional
first-order conditioning situations, as priorly determined, and
that backward blocking is obtainable in first-order conditioning if the
target cue did not have (at least temporarily) the potential to control
behavior at the time of elemental training with three different procedures,
(1) forward blocking the compound stimulus with a third cue
and then inducing release from forward blocking following elemental
training with the backward blocking cue, (2) conducting compound
and elemental training with backward temporal relationships to the
US and assessing associative effects using second-order conditioning,
and (3) extinguishing the target cue following compound training and
conducting elemental training in a context different from that used in
compound training, and then testing the target cue in the context that
had been used for compound training (i.e., renewal).
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2:30–2:45 (213)
Comparison of Learning Methods Applied to Dogs by Novice
Handlers. STANLEY COREN, University of British Columbia—Little
research has looked at the effectiveness of various methods of dog
training when applied by novice dog trainers. Three groups of novice
dog owners were trained to apply luring, physical prompting, or the
traditional physical prompting with leash corrections in order to teach
their dogs pet positional changes (specifically, sit, down, and stand).
The performance of the dogs was monitored over 3 weeks and lure
training was found to be most effective, whereas the traditional physical
prompting with leash corrections was the least effective. In addition,
measures of animal attitude and emotion (body signals and responsiveness
to owners) was different for the different methods, with
lure training producing the best responses, while physical prompting
with corrections produced fewer approach responses to the handler.
These results have clear implications for pet dog owners seeking to
train their dogs effectively.
Timing and Attention
Beacon B, Saturday Afternoon, 1:30–3:10
Chaired by John J. McDonald, Simon Fraser University
1:30–1:45 (214)
Electrical Neuroimaging Reveals Timing of Attentional Control in
Human Brain. JOHN J. MCDONALD & JESSICA J. GREEN, Simon
Fraser University—The frontal lobes are believed to orchestrate
attentional-control operations underlying our ability to shift attention
in space. Functional brain imaging has revealed frontal and parietal
activity in attention-cuing tasks, but due to the sluggishness of the
fMRI signal, the sequence of attentional-control operations in the
human brain remains unknown. Here, we used an analytical technique
called beamforming to reconstruct both the timing and anatomical
sources of low-frequency brain waves associated with attentional control.
Following a signal to shift attention, control activity was seen in
parietal cortex 100–200 msec prior to activity in frontal cortex. Parietal
cortex was then re-activated prior to anticipatory biasing of activity
in occipital cortex. The magnitudes of early parietal activations
as well as later activations were strongly predictive of the degree of
attentional improvement in perceptual performance. These results
demonstrate that voluntary control of spatial attention involves initial
feedforward activations prior to top-down attentional control.
1:50–2:05 (215)
Temporally Selective Attention Modulates Perception of Rapidly
Presented Information. LISA D. SANDERS, LORI ASTHEIMER,
WILLIAM BUSH, & AHREN FITZROY, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst—Selective attention provides a mechanism by which people
preferentially process subsets of stimuli when faced with overwhelming
amounts of information. Spatially selective attention is important
for perceiving complex scenes in which multiple objects are presented
simultaneously at different locations. We present evidence from a series
of experiments that indicate temporally selective attention plays
an important role in perception when more information than can be
processed in detail is presented rapidly. Specifically, participants can
direct selective attention both to different levels of hierarchically organized
rhythms and to distinct time points. Doing so modulates auditory
and visually evoked potentials at early perceptual stages. Furthermore,
directing temporally selective attention to hierarchical
levels and specific time points affects perception of the rapidly
changing acoustic features that constitute speech. Language experience
and proficiency affect the skill with which listeners select the
most relevant features and differentially process attended and unattended
information in speech streams.
2:10–2:25 (216)
Timing and Task Switching Without Interference. CLAUDETTE
FORTIN, University of Laval, RICHARD J. SCHWEICKERT, Purdue