Institute of Neurobiology, University of Ulm, D-89081 Ulm, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 May 4;107(18):8481-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0912357107. Epub 2010 Apr 19.
Mice reproduce interesting effects in auditory discrimination learning and knowledge transfer discussed in human studies: (i) the advantage in the transfer from a hard to an easy task by benefits from transfer of procedural knowledge and information-integration learning, and (ii) the disadvantage in the transfer from easy to hard tasks by inability to generalize across perceptually different classes of stimuli together with initially unsuccessful attempts to transfer cognitive skills from one task to the other. House mice (NMRI strain) were trained in a shuttle-box stimulus discrimination task. They had to discriminate either between two pure tones of different frequencies (PT) or between two different modulation frequencies of an amplitude-modulated tone (AM). Then transfer of knowledge between these two tasks was tested. Mice rapidly learned PT discrimination within two to three training sessions (easy task). AM discrimination learning took longer and did not reach the high performance level of PT discrimination (hard task). No knowledge transfer was detected in animals first trained with the easy (PT) followed by the hard (AM) discrimination task. Mice benefited, however, from knowledge transfer when the AM discrimination was followed by the PT discrimination. When the task changed, confusion of conditioned stimuli occurred if the carrier frequency of the AM was the same as one of the frequencies in the PT task. These results show a hard-to-easy effect when possible knowledge transfer is tested between qualitatively different stimulus classes. The data establish mice as promising animal model for research on genetics of auditory perception and learning.
在听觉辨别学习和知识迁移方面，老鼠的表现与人类研究相似：（i）从难任务向易任务转移时，由于程序知识和信息整合学习的转移而具有优势，（ii）从易任务向难任务转移时，由于无法跨感知不同类别的刺激进行概括，以及最初将认知技能从一项任务转移到另一项任务的尝试失败，而处于劣势。研究人员使用 NMRI 品系的老鼠在穿梭箱刺激辨别任务中进行训练。它们必须辨别两个不同频率的纯音（PT）或两个不同调制频率的调幅声（AM）。然后测试两种任务之间的知识转移。老鼠在两到三个训练课程内迅速学会了 PT 辨别（简单任务）。AM 辨别学习需要更长的时间，并且无法达到 PT 辨别的高性能水平（困难任务）。首先接受简单任务（PT）训练，然后接受困难任务（AM）训练的动物未检测到知识转移。然而，当 AM 辨别紧随 PT 辨别时，老鼠会从知识转移中受益。当任务发生变化时，如果 AM 的载波频率与 PT 任务中的频率之一相同，则条件刺激会混淆。这些结果表明，在测试不同质量刺激类别的可能知识转移时，存在从难到易的效果。这些数据表明，老鼠是研究听觉感知和学习遗传的有前途的动物模型。
