Brief retention deficits associated with cyclically recurring left hemisphere events.

In the chick, brief episodes of enhanced recall ("retrieval events") recur approximately every 25 min in recall via the right hemisphere, and every 16 min in recall via the left. These events coincide with, and probably cause, the numerous transitions between memory phases described in the chick.; The most important of these is the transition to long-term memory, which is sometimes held to occur in chicks at about 50 min after learning, a transition picked out as unique by a variety of effects of amnesia-inducing agents, and by a brief impairment ("dip") in recall at 55 min. We used a single trial passive avoidance task, involving bead pecking, to show that in chicks using only one eye, such dips occur not only at 55 min (in right-eyed chicks only) but also after each of the subsequent series of left hemisphere events (in left-eyed chicks only). Dips in recall appear to result when processes that are initiated by left hemisphere retrieval events result in hemispheric interaction, with one hemisphere (which can be either left or right) holding an inadequate trace (e.g., as a result of monocular training). Recall tests under such conditions may involve both the adequate and the inadequate trace, so that performance is impaired.