memory + tool use

inhibit consolidation

electroconvulsive shock

drugs that increase GABA - slows down breathing and thinking

distracting stimuli, new learning

enhance consolidation

drugs that increase glutamate

cain et al 2008

•Hamsters were either shocked during the day or night

proved that a hamster's memory retrieval is tied to the specific time of day it was trained.

semantic memory

general knowledge

episodic memory

knowledge of autobiographical events

what you ate for breakfast, first day of school

habituation

decrease in the strength of an elicited behavior following repeated presentations of a stimulus

• background noise, long term and short term, stimulus specific

sensitization

increase in the strength of an elicited behavior following repeated presentations of a stimulus

• soldiers hearing shells exploding

• often generalizes to other stimuli

long term potentiation

increase in synaptic strength following repeated stimulation of neurons

• increased responsibility of receptors

• how experiences translate into physical changes in the brain during learning and long-term memory formation

• reviewing flashcards activates specific neural circuits over and over, reinforcing the connections between those neurons so the information moves from short-term to long-term memory

• serves as the foundational biological model for how diverse species adapt to their environments through learning and memory

tool use

•The use of an external object as a functional extension of mouth or beak, hand or claw, in the attainment of an immediate goal

•Using an external object to assist in gaining some desired end

•May have flexibility - the animal may transport, modify, or select the tool

primates use stones to crack nuts

crows use twigs to probe hols for food

New Caledonian crows

•Observational learning was a part of this – not all of it

•Both groups learned to use tools around the same time

•1^st group spent more time in tool related activities

•Crows raised in captivity that had never observed others manufacturing tools by tearing leaves:

•Still engaged in tearing behavior

•But tool manufacture was crude

trap tube task

•DV = how long until the trap is consistently avoided

•There is a piece of food – measure how long until they can regularly avoid the trap

trap tube task outcome

1st study - capuchin monkeys and chimps successfully learned to avoid the trap

• when the test was inverted they continued to avoid the trap

• they were learning not causal reasoning

• trial and error operant conditioning

choosing the right tool

less demanding than trap tube tasks

more comparable to the actual discriminations that tool-using species must make in the wild

• examines if organisms recognize relevant features of tool to access features of tool to access food

insight

sudden solution to a problem without learning