Rapp P R, Kansky M T, Eichenbaum H
Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA.
Behav Neurosci. 1996 Oct;110(5):887-97. doi: 10.1037//0735-7044.110.5.887.
Young and aged rhesus monkeys were tested on 2 versions of a transitive inference task measuring learning and memory for hierarchical relationships. Animals initially acquired 4 object discrimination problems arranged such that the relationship between the stimuli followed the hierarchy A > B > C > D > E. The second version of the task was similar but involved a series of 7 objects. Learning and memory for the hierarchical relationships were evaluated during probe trials in which novel pairs of nonadjacent items (e.g., B and D) were presented for a response. Standard task accuracy measures failed to distinguish young and aged subjects at any point in training. In contrast, response latency effects that are indicative of relational information processing in young monkeys were entirely absent in aged subjects. The findings highlight the value of a relational memory framework for establishing a detailed neuropsychological account of cognitive aging in the monkey.
对幼年和老年恒河猴进行了两种版本的传递性推理任务测试，以测量它们对层级关系的学习和记忆能力。动物最初要掌握4个物体辨别问题，这些问题的设置使得刺激之间的关系遵循A > B > C > D > E的层级顺序。任务的第二个版本类似，但涉及一系列7个物体。在探测试验中评估对层级关系的学习和记忆，在探测试验中会呈现新的非相邻项目对（例如，B和D）以供做出反应。标准任务准确性测量在训练的任何阶段都未能区分幼年和老年受试者。相比之下，表明幼年猴子存在关系信息处理的反应潜伏期效应在老年受试者中完全不存在。这些发现凸显了关系记忆框架对于建立猴子认知衰老详细神经心理学解释的价值。
