Craig, Sarah and Cunningham, Lorretto and Kelly, Lynda and Commins, Sean (2005) Long-term retention and overshadowing of proximal and distal cues following habituation in an object exploration task. Behavioural Processes, 68 (2). pp. 117-128. ISSN 0376-6357

Preview

Download (368kB) | Preview

Abstract

The object displacement task is a popular tool used to investigate spatial learning and memory. However, little attention has previously been given to long-term retention of spatial information following habituation to this task. Furthermore, the role of both proximal and distal cues in this type of passive retention of spatial information is controversial. In Study 1, we examined habituation in the object displacement task across 4 days and examined reactivity to spatial change 7 days post-acquisition. We found that rats habituated rapidly to the environment and retained this environment for the 7 days. Furthermore, this experiment shows that both proximal and distal spatial cues are important in the encoding of the environment during object displacement learning task. In Study 2, we examined the effect of overshadowing and demonstrate that proximal visual spatial cues can overshadow distal spatial cues if a conflict arises between both set.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Spatial memory; Object displacement; Retention; Distal visual cues; Proximal visual cues; Overshadowing;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
Item ID:	10701
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2004.12.001
Depositing User:	Dr. Sean Commins
Date Deposited:	09 Apr 2019 14:12
Journal or Publication Title:	Behavioural Processes
Publisher:	Elsevier
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	https://www.sciencedirect.com

Repository Staff Only(login required)

Item control page

Downloads